Alan Kenneth Soper (born 1951) FRS is an

STFC The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astro ...

Senior Fellow at the

ISIS neutron source The ISIS Neutron and Muon Source is a pulsed neutron and muon source, established 1984 at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, Unite ...

based at the

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the Atlas ...

in Oxfordshire.

Education

Soper was educated at the

Campion School, Hornchurch The Campion School is a Roman Catholic boys' secondary school and coeducational sixth form in Hornchurch, London, England. The school converted to academy status in August 2011, and has a specialism in science. History The Campion School was f ...

and the

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_labe ...

where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree followed by a PhD in 1977 for research into the structure of

aqueous solution An aqueous solution is a solution in which the solvent is water. It is mostly shown in chemical equations by appending (aq) to the relevant chemical formula. For example, a solution of table salt, or sodium chloride (NaCl), in water would be re ...

s conducted at the

Institut Laue–Langevin The Institut Laue–Langevin (ILL) is an internationally financed scientific facility, situated on the Polygone Scientifique in Grenoble, France. It is one of the world centres for research using neutrons. Founded in 1967 and honouring the phy ...

in Grenoble supervised by

John Enderby Sir John Edwin Enderby One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (16 January 1931 – 3 August 2021) was a British physicist, and was Professor of Physics at University of Bristol from 19 ...

Career

Before moving to RAL in 1997, Soper was a postdoctoral researcher and assistant professor in the Physics Department at the

University of Guelph , mottoeng = "to learn the reasons of realities" , established = May 8, 1964 ()As constituents: OAC: (1874) Macdonald Institute: (1903) OVC: (1922) , type = Public university , chancellor ...

, Ontario in Canada and a staff member at the

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

Los Alamos, New Mexico Los Alamos is an census-designated place in Los Alamos County, New Mexico, United States, that is recognized as the development and creation place of the atomic bomb—the primary objective of the Manhattan Project by Los Alamos National Labora ...

in the United States.

Research

Soper's research investigates molecular-level structures in structurally disordered systems. Soper was chair of the prestigious

Gordon Research Conference Gordon Research Conferences are a group of international scientific conferences organized by a non-profit organization of the same name. The conference topics cover frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and thei ...

on Water and Aqueous Solutions in 2008 and is the co-designer of the Near and InterMediate Range Order Diffractometer (NIMROD) instrumentISIS NIMROD
Science and Technology Facilities Council on the

. Soper is a world expert in the structure of water and water-based solutions at the molecular level. Using experimental techniques such as neutron and

X-ray diffraction X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

, combined with computer simulation and structure refinement, Soper investigates the organisation and behaviour of water molecules, including their interaction with other molecules and surfaces. His work has relevance given the importance of water in the biochemical processes of living organisms. He has characterised the structure of water under extreme conditions – as found miles down at the bottom of the ocean – and in heavily confined water such as occurs in nanoscopic mineral cavities. He has observed that this water is likely to be under significant tension – about −1000

atmospheres The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as Pa. It is sometimes used as a ''reference pressure'' or ''standard pressure''. It is approximately equal to Earth's average atmospheric pressure at sea level. History The s ...

Awards and honours

Soper was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: His nomination reads: Soper was made an

senior research fellow in 2009.ISIS water legend
Materials Today 2009-08-22

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soper, Alan Living people 1951 births Alumni of the University of Leicester British physicists Fellows of the Royal Society People from Hornchurch Science and Technology Facilities Council