Projects | Phoenix Jahn

Radiacode Acquired Data (RAD)

With Dr. Corinne Brevik, SIU Carbondale · September 2025 – present

Radiacode Acquired Data, or RAD, is a project to measure environmental radiation levels using Radiacode personal dosimeters. Team members collect readings with GPS tracks, and the readings are imported into a central database and turned into dose-rate maps.

Poster, APS Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting, October 2026: “Building a Large-Scale Radiation Monitoring Dataset Using Consumer Semiconductor Gamma-Ray Spectrometers”

Built the import pipeline that loads the dosimeter data into an Oracle Autonomous Database.
Built a public Oracle APEX page with SIU-themed styling, plus a script that generates static dose-rate map images from the live data and publishes them.
Used QGIS and GeoPackage layers with elevation data for the GIS side of the analysis.

Map of the central United States showing Radiacode dose-rate measurements as purple dots sized by dose rate, with clusters in southern Illinois, South Dakota and Wyoming — Dose rate (µSv/h) from RAD measurements, as shown on the RAD data page. Snapshot generated 31 August 2026; the live page is always the latest.

Open the RAD data page

Python · SQL · Oracle APEX · QGIS · radiation measurement

Modular Laser System for SEOP

Goodson Lab, SIU Carbondale · January 2025 – present

Spin exchange optical pumping (SEOP) uses laser light to hyperpolarize noble gases such as xenon, which makes them far more visible to NMR and MRI. High-power lasers for this are expensive, so the lab's goal is a modular system that combines several lower-power, lower-cost laser modules into one beam.

Characterized laser diode arrays with volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) of different reflectivities, measuring power and spectra across drive currents. In our tests a VBG near 20% reflectivity gave the best output for one array.
Identified that the original power supply could not deliver the 80 A+ needed for full characterization, and worked on upgrading the setup.
Built a beam-expanding telescope to collimate the beam to two inches, so it fills the full volume of the gas cell.
Redesigned the VBG mount so gratings can be swapped without a tedious realignment, and designed 3D-printed parts for a more adjustable stand.
Began automating the test procedures in software, and wrote a REACH proposal for xenon hyperpolarization with the modular system.

The 3D-printed stand holding the laser module, with slotted feet bolted to the optical table — The stand we designed, modeled and 3D printed. It holds the laser module on the optical table, and its slotted feet let it be adjusted and bolted down.

Chart of output power in watts against drive current in amps for VBGs of 15.5, 18, 20 and 25 percent reflectivity, with and without fiber — Output power (W) versus drive current (A) for VBGs of different reflectivity, with and without the fiber. The 20% grating gave the highest output.

Beam-expanding telescope attached to the fiber output — Beam-expanding telescope on the fiber output, used to collimate the beam to two inches.

Volume Bragg grating held in its adjustable aluminum mount — A volume Bragg grating in its adjustable mount, which I modified to make swapping gratings easier.

Laser diode array on positioning stages with power supply cabling and a power meter — The setup as it was when I joined the lab, before the upgrades.

Lasers · optics · spectroscopy · CAD & 3D printing · Python

Spin-Noise Network

Contributor · open source

The Spin-Noise Network is a community measurement program for nuclear spin noise. Any NMR facility with a spectrometer can contribute data with one sample tube and one command, and the combined data maps how spin noise behaves across many kinds of probes. It is part of CASPEr@night, a search for dark matter in the noise of idle NMR spectrometers.

I'm a contributor to this project. The program is led by John W. Blanchard and the CASPEr-Night team.

View on GitHub

NMR · data acquisition · open science · Python