Dr Bill Hamilton

Phone +61 (0)2 9717 7271
Email  William.Hamilton@ansto.gov.au

Bill Hamilton received his Ph.D. in Physics (Studies in Neutron Optics) from the University of Melbourne Australia in 1987 for work with Profs. Tony Klein and Geoff Opat on neutron interferometry and the "grating" diffraction of neutrons by surface acoustic waves. In a postdoc at the Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center he worked on the neutron optical design of the SPEAR neutron reflectometer - applying imaging analysis to specular reflectivity data reduction to allow gains in measurement intensity without sacrificing resolution. As a staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1990 to 2006 he continued this work, designing and building the neutron reflection instrument MIRROR at ORNL's High-Flux Isotope Reactor. The focus of his research has been on the use of neutron reflectometry and small-angle neutron scattering to study the near surface ordering and dynamics of flow induced structures in complex fluid systems - for which he and John Hayter received an ORNL-Martin Marietta Energy Systems Award for Technical Achievement in 1995. He has also worked on thin film polymer morphology and surface adsorption and organization of surfactant, polymer and protein solutions. Recent work has concentrated on various membrane phases: the conformational accommodations of bulk fluid phases correlations to the constraint of a proximate surface, the scaling of their dynamic responses to flow, the molecular engineering of mixed lipid systems, and the application of time-resolved SANS techniques to the energetics of bilayer membrane fusion - which has direct implications for the analogous processes in living cells.

Selected Papers

M. D. Brown, B. M. Law, L. Marchand, L. B. Lurio, I. Kuzmenko, T. Gog, and W. A. Hamilton, X-ray and ellipsometric study of strong critical adsorption, Phys. Rev. E, 75(6), Art. No. 061606 (2007).

"Shear-induced collapse in a lyotropic lamellar phase", L. Porcar, G. G. Warr, W. A. Hamilton, and P. D. Butler, Physical Review Letters 95, 078302 (2005)

"Surface Enrichment of Proteins at Interfaces: A Neutron Reflectivity Study", D. Forciniti and W.A. Hamilton, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 285, 458 (2005).

"Conformation, directed self-assembly and engineered modification: Some recent near surface structure determinations by grazing incidence small angle x-ray and neutron scattering", W.A. Hamilton, Current Opinion in Colloid and Interface Science 357, 88 (2005).

"Using Neutron Reflectometry and reflection geometry "Near-Surface" SANS to investigate surfactant micelle organization at a solid-solution interface", W. A. Hamilton, L. Porcar, and L.J. Magid, Physica B 357, 88 (2005).

"Determining the Density Profile of Confined Polymer Brushes using Neutron Reflectivity", W.A. Hamilton, G.S. Smith, N.A. Alcantar, J. Majewski and T.L. Kuhl, Journal of Polymer Science B: Polymer Physics 42, 3290 (2004).

"Topological relaxation of a shear-induced lamellar phase to sponge equilibrium and the energetics of membrane fusion", L. Porcar, W.A. Hamilton, P.D. Butler and G.G. Warr, Physical Review Letters 93, 198301(2004) and Physical Review Focus "When Membranes Collide" 16 November 2004 http://focus.aps.org/story/v14/st20 .

"Scaling behavior of shear-induced sponge to lamellar transformations", L. Porcar, W.A. Hamilton, P.D. Butler and G.G. Warr, Physical Review Letters 89,168301 (2002).

"Local membrane ordering of sponge phases at a solid-solution interface", W.A. Hamilton, L. Porcar, P.D. Butler and G.G. Warr, Journal of Chemical Physics 116, 8533 (2002).

"Fast Relaxation of a Hexagonal Poiseuille Shear-induced Near-Surface Phase in a Threadlike Micellar Solution", W.A. Hamilton, P.D. Butler, L.J. Magid, Z. Han and T.M. Slawecki, Physical Review E (Rapid Communications) 60, 1146 (1999).

"Shear Induced Hexagonal Ordering Observed in an Ionic Viscoelastic Fluid in Flow past a Surface", W.A. Hamilton, P.D. Butler, S.M. Baker, G.S. Smith, J.B. Hayter, L.J. Magid and R. Pynn, Physical Review Letters 72, 2219 (1994).

"Neutron Reflectometry as Optical Imaging", W. A. Hamilton, J. B. Hayter, and G. S. Smith, Journal of Neutron Research 2, 1 (1994).

"Observation of Motion-Induced Phase Shift of Neutron de Broglie Waves Passing Through Matter at a Nuclear Resonance," M. Arif, H. Kaiser, R. Clothier, S. A. Werner, W. A. Hamilton, A. Cimmino, and A. G. Klein, Physical Review 39, 931 (1989).

"Neutron Diffraction by Surface Acoustic Waves", W. A. Hamilton, A. G. Klein, and G. I. Opat, Physical Review Letters 58, 2770 (1987)).