Dr Phil Bentley

Phone: +61 2 9717 7338
Email: phil.bentley@ansto.gov.au

Phil Bentley joins us from the Institut Laue-Langevin, in Grenoble, France, where he was working in neutron optics in Ken Andersen's group. His primary research interests are the application of artificial-intelligence algorithms to difficult design and optimisation problems in neutron instrumentation and neutron optics.

He began his scientific career at St Andrews, using Mossbauer spectroscopy on a variety of problems in magnetism, geology and biology with Prof. Sue Kilcoyne. His PhD on spin correlations in frustrated transition metal magnets was completed in Leeds, under the supervision of Prof. Bob Cywinski. This work lead to the discovery of a new magnetic ground state, the spin emulsion. During this time, he became interested in computational methods such as maximum entropy, ray-tracing and monte-carlo simulations, especially applied to techniques for the study of disordered magnets. At the Hahn-Meitner Institut in Berlin, he co-developed spherical polarimetric spin echo in collaboration with Prof. C. Pappas and Dr. E. Lelievre-Berna, which proved conclusively the persistence of helical correlations into the paramagnetic phase of MnSi, and laid the groundwork for specialised A.I. methods for scientific instrument design. During the last two years, these instrument optimisation tools have been developed and can be used routinely for designing neutron scattering instruments and guides.

Qualifications and Achievements

24 publications and highlight articles
PhD in Physics, University of Leeds, 2003.
Young Scientists Award, at the Third European Conference on Neutron Scattering, in Montpellier, France, in 2003.
MSci in Physics, University of St Andrews, 1999, with the class prize for the final year project.

Key Publications

"Spherical neutron polarimetry applied to spin-echo and time-of-flight spectroscopy", E. Lelievre-Berna, P. Bentley, E. Bourgeat-Lami, M. Thomas, C. Pappas, R. Kischnik, E. Moskvin, Physica B 404 (2009) 2624

"Accurate simulation of neutrons in less than one minute Pt. 1: Acceptance diagram shading", P. M. Bentley, K. H. Andersen, Nuc. Inst. Meth. Phys. Res. A 602 (2009), 564

"Optimization of focusing neutronic devices using artificial intelligence techniques", P. M. Bentley, K. H. Andersen, J.Appl. Cryst. 42 (2009), 217

"Evidence for a Spin Emulsion", P. M. Bentley and R. Cywinski, Phys. Rev. Lett.101 (2008) 227202

"Instrument Design and Optimisation Using Genetic Algorithms", R Hoelzel, P M Bentley, P Fouquet, Rev. Sci. Inst. 77 (2006), 105107

"Determination of hyperfine field distributions in amorphous magnets", P M Bentley, S H Kilcoyne, J. Phys. Cond. Matt. 18 (2006), 7751