Scientists win £4.5million contract

SCIENTISTS at Daresbury, near Warrington, have won a £4.5 million contract with a European consortium tasked with delivering the most advanced and powerful gamma beam facility in the world.
It will specialise in both basic and applied research, from investigating the processes that take place in the heart of stars, to industrial and
medical applications.
The contract has been won by the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Daresbury Laboratory.
The full was awarded to a European consortium, EuroGammaS, which is led by Italy’s Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN).
The EuroGammaS, consortium has been selected to develop the accelerator based gamma source, which will form part of a major new research facility, the European Extreme Light Infrastructure for Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) in Romania.
Professor Susan Smith, head of STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory, said: “Winning this contract is fantastic news for STFC.
“It demonstrates that Daresbury Laboratory has the facilities and expertise to deliver next generation accelerator solutions anywhere in the world. As part of the EuroGammaS consortium, this contract strengthens STFC’s international reputation and collaboration with Europe’s leading institutes and commercial companies; it reinforces the UK as an international leader in this area.”
For its part of the project, STFC will supply 22 accelerator modules which steer, control and measure the intense beam of electrons that are accelerated to energies of more than seven hundred, thousand, million volts.
The high energy electrons are collided with an intense pulse of light from an extremely high power laser to produce the most brilliant tuneable gamma-ray beam available in the world. This is a technically complex system delivery which involves integrating, aligning and testing the radio frequency structures, high field magnets, vacuum chambers and controls.
The accelerator modules will be assembled and tested at Daresbury prior to delivery to the ELI-NP site in Magurele, Romania. Once operational, the facility will produce high intensity gamma beams of very precise energy that can then be used for nuclear physics experiments and other applications.
President of the INFN, Fernando Ferroni, said: “It’s tremendously exciting for EuroGammaS to have won this contract and also to welcome STFC into the project. EuroGammaS is a melting pot of prestigious
research institutions and companies, each with formidable experience in developing major research infrastructures, such as the ELI-NP, and INFN is proud to be leader of the Association. The work we are now doing together is tangible proof that basic research produces concrete results and impact on society.”
Neil Bliss, group leader within STFC’s technology department, who has played a key role in design engineering STFC’s particle accelerators, such as the EMMA and VELA accelerators, both of which are world firsts said: “Winning this contract to work with the EuroGammaS consortium is fantastic news for STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory and true recognition of our expertise and skills in developing pioneering accelerator technology. “We are constantly developing our know-how and making new and exciting breakthroughs.
“Major projects like this build on the UK’s expertise and experimental experience in this area, paving the way for the UK’s next state-of-the-art light source, simultaneously contributing to international R&D.”
This is the second contract that UK scientists have won for the ELI project. STFC’s Centre for Advanced
Laser Technology and Applications (CALTA), recently won a major £2.2million contract to develop a cutting-edge
laser amplifier that can supply extremely powerful bursts of laser energy.