Roy E. Rand

It is with great sadness that we share news of the unexpected passing of the extremely talented physicist Roy E. Rand at age 86 on 4 April 2022. Roy worked in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, accelerator physics, and medical physics, and his versatility extended from theory to instrument design.

Roy was born in Eltham, southeast London, on 14 October 1935 and attended Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School. He earned his BSc (Hons 1) in 1956 and his PhD in 1960 from University College London (UCL). He was employed as a lecturer at UCL until discussions during a visit by Robert Hofstadter led to a research position working with the Mark III Linear Accelerator at the High Energy Physics Laboratory (HEPL) at Stanford University. Roy stayed there until 1966, when he returned to England to work at the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory.

In 1970 Roy returned to HEPL, where he spearheaded the design of the superconducting recyclotron electron accelerator, with which energies of hundreds of MeV could be attained at considerable cost savings. He then accepted a position in 1974 as head of the department of physics at the University of Western Australia (UWA), where he led a project to develop a cryogenic niobium resonant bar for gravitational-wave detection with David Blair and Cyril Edwards, extending an idea by Bill Fairbank of Stanford. The project continued under Blair and Edwards long after Roy’s departure from UWA at the end of 1977, blossoming into a prominent effort and leading to the group’s participation in the LIGO project. In 1975 Roy was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society. In 1978 he returned to HEPL for a third time and worked on the then-built superconducting recyclotron (achieving energies up to 400 MeV) until 1981 and the project’s premature demise.

In 1981 Roy became a founding member of Imatron Inc as vice president for research, where he played a key role in the development of an innovative cardiac ultrafast CT scanner, making possible high time-resolution images of a rapidly moving heart. The scanner had no mechanically moving parts and achieved the required speed via a rapidly scanning DC electron beam aimed at an x-ray target. For the high spatial resolution required, the major challenge was to create a tiny <1 mm beam spot in the face of space-charge repulsion at the required intensity. Whereas several accelerator physicists consulted by Imatron considered this to be a showstopper, Roy found a way to neutralize the beam and developed the theory and designed the instruments and methods which resulted in its successful implementation . As a result, the Imatron electron-beam scanners dominated the field of cardiac CT imaging for the next 20 years. Most crucially, these scanners made possible highly accurate measurement of calcium deposits in the coronary arteries, a method which became the most effective screening procedure for early heart-disease detection.

Another invention of significance is a high-power rotating x-ray tube for use in CT scanners, patented in 1991. Instead of the disk anode rotating in vacuum, in Roy’s design the whole tube rotates around a fixed disk anode, which can then be in direct contact with the cooling oil. This allowed much faster cooling of the anode and thus higher power scans at a rapid rate. This design was licensed to Siemens and is now widely used in their scanners.

Roy was also involved in designing an electron beam baggage scanner and explosives detector. In 2008 he was a finalist for the American Physical Society Industrial Physics Prize. After his retirement he continued to consult on electron-beam technology. As late as 2018 Roy was still writing complex technical papers about the use of high-density electron beams in medical products. Roy’s life work resulted in more than 25 patents and numerous publications, including the book Recirculating Electron Accelerators in 1984, and he leaves behind a legacy of medical innovation.

Roy was also an avid traveler and passionate about camping all over Europe, Australia and North America. He was interested in genealogy, enjoyed the challenge of Sudokus, loved a good laugh, and was a dear and respected friend to many in his community. He was kind, generous, selfless, and modest. Roy is survived by his loving wife of 64 years, Hazel, children Elizabeth and Richard, and grandchildren Cordelia, Julian and Andryw. He will be profoundly missed.