Vincent Da Costa, research technician and MSc student in the School of Engineering, has attended the IVEC 2025 Conference in Rotterdam, The Netherlands after being awarded Student Conference Sponsorship from the European Space Agency (ESA) Academy. A highly competitive process against other candidates across Europe, this was a coveted prize. It funded not only registration to the conference, but travel and accommodation too. This support and recognition from the ESA Academy demonstrated Vincent’s hard work and dedication to his research.

Being able to attend this conference was an important stepping stone for development as a student. Vincent presented two different papers while at the conference, one being “Trapezoidal Bridged Double Corrugated Waveguide W-band TWT for High Data Rate Links” authored by Vincent Da Costa, Jonatha Gates, Rosa Letizia and Claudio Paoloni. The talk at IVEC presented a new piece of research for transmission front end at W-band (102 - 109.5 GHz), enabled by a novel traveling wave tube amplifier based on the Trapezoidal Bridged Double Corrugated Waveguide. It described the state-of-the-art fabrication process by Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) milling and diffusion bonding.

The ESA is an international organisation with 23 Member States. It is Europe’s gateway to space and its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. As an international organisation with 23 Member States, it can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country.

Professor Claudio Paoloni supervisor of Vincent said: “I am very grateful to ESA Academy for the great opportunity offered to Vincent to discuss his outstanding achievement to fabricate state of the art W-band complex interaction structure for sub-THz traveling wave tubes in the most important international conference on vacuum electronics. Vincent is a great example of career development from a technician role to a Master by research with substantial scientific contribution to the vacuum electronic field.”

Vincent da Costa said: "This has been an excellent opportunity to deepen my understanding of vacuum electronics, not only with regards to the Manufacturing processes but also their functionality and vast range of applications. I am very grateful to the ESA Academy for offering me their sponsorship and to Professor Claudio Paoloni and Doctor Rosa Letizia for providing me with this amazing opportunity."