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About

H. J. Poole is a leading figure in accelerator technology, specializing in the mitigation of performance-limiting phenomena in high-energy particle colliders. Their primary research focuses on developing innovative *in-situ* coating and cleaning techniques for long, narrow vacuum tubes, directly addressing the critical challenges of electron clouds and resistive heating in machines like the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Poole's major contribution is the invention of a robotic "magnetron mole"—a mobile plasma sputtering device that can travel inside small-diameter beam pipes to deposit thick, low-secondary-electron-yield (SEY) copper coatings. This work is pivotal for suppressing electron clouds that degrade beam quality and for reducing ohmic heating in superconducting magnets. With several papers each garnering 2–4 citations, Poole’s impact is foundational within the specialized field of accelerator vacuum and surface engineering. Their notable achievements include the successful *in-situ* coating of RHIC’s 316LN stainless steel cold bore tubes, a feat that enables higher machine performance and future upgrades. Poole’s ingenuity in combining robotics with plasma deposition offers a practical, scalable solution for maintaining and enhancing the world’s most powerful particle accelerators.