European Spallation Source

The European Spallation Source ERIC (ESS) is a multi-disciplinary research facility based on the world's most powerful pulsed neutron source. It is currently under construction in Lund, Sweden. The ESS Data Management and Software Centre (DMSC) will be located in Copenhagen, Denmark. The 13 European member countries act as partners in the construction and operation of ESS. ESS will start the scientific user programme in 2023, and the construction phase will be complete by 2025. ESS is the world's most powerful next-generation neutron source, and will enable scientists to see and understand basic atomic structures and forces at length and time scales unachievable at other neutron sources.

The research infrastructure, owned by 13 European nations, is built close to the Max IV Laboratory. The colocation of powerful neutron and x-ray facilities is a productive strategy (e.g. the Institut Laue–Langevin with the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility; the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source with the Diamond Light Source), because much of the knowledge, technical infrastructure, and scientific methods associated with neutron and x-ray technologies are similar.

The construction of the facility began in the summer of 2014 and the first science results produced are planned for 2023. Scientists and engineers from more than 100 partner laboratories are working on updating and optimising the advanced technical design of the ESS facility, and at the same time are exploring how to maximise its research potential. These partner laboratories, universities and research institutes are also contributing human resources, knowledge, equipment, and financial support through In-Kind Contributions.

ESS will use nuclear spallation, a process in which neutrons are liberated from heavy elements by high energy protons.  This is intrinsically a much safer process than uranium fission. Unlike existing facilities, the ESS is neither a "short pulse" (micro-seconds) spallation source, nor a continuous source like the SINQ facility in Switzerland, but the first example of a "long pulse" source (milli-seconds)

.

The future facility is composed of a linear accelerator in which protons are accelerated and collide with a rotating, helium-cooled tungsten target. By this process, intense pulses of neutrons are generated. Surrounding the tungsten are baths of cryogenic hydrogen which feed supermirror guides. These operate in a similar way to optical fibres, directing the intense beams of neutrons to experimental stations, where research is done on different materials. Many of the instruments benefit from more than a decade of development, and several of the designs are unique in order to maximise the benefits of the long pulse.

Neutron scattering can be applied to a range of scientific questions, spanning the realms of physics, chemistry, geology, biology and medicine. Neutrons serve as a unique probe for revealing the structure and function of matter from the microscopic down to the atomic scale. Using neutrons for research enables us to investigate the world around us as well as to develop new materials and processes to meet the needs of society. Neutrons are frequently used to address the grand challenges, to improve and develop new solutions for health, the environment, clean energy, IT and more.

ESS became a European Research Infrastructure Consortium, or ERIC, on 1 October 2015. The European Spallation Source ERIC is "a joint European organisation committed to constructing and operating the world's leading facility for research using neutrons."

ESS is designed to be carbon-neutral and is expected to reduce CO₂ emissions in the region.

Though it is just over half way through the construction project, the ESS is already a scientifically productive organisation. Many world-leading experts are either directly employed or linked to the project via collaborations, and working on pressing societal problems. Examples include the determination of protein structure in COVID-19 and the provision o
deuteration services
to other scientists.

The European Investment Bank made a €50 million investment in European Spallation Source. This investment is supported by InnovFin-EU Finance for Innovators, an initiative established by the EIB Group in collaboration with the European Commission under Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation program.

History

When the ISIS neutron source was built in England in 1985, its radical success in producing indirect images of molecular structures eventually raised the possibility of a far more powerful spallation source. By 1993, the European Neutron Scattering Association began to advocate what would be the most ambitious and broad-based spallation source in the world, ESS.

Neutron science soon became a critical tool in the development of industrial and consumer products worldwide. So much so that the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), declared in 1999 that a new generation of high-intensity neutron sources should be built, one each in North America, Asia and Europe. Europe's challenge was its diverse collection of national governments, and an active research community numbering in the thousands. In 2001, a European roadmap for developing accelerator driven systems for nuclear waste incineration estimated that the ESS could have the beam ready for users in 2010. A European international task force gathered in Bonn in 2002 to review the findings and a positive consensus emerged to build ESS. The stakeholders group met a year later to review the task force's progress, and in 2003 a new design concept was adopted that set the course for beginning operations by 2019.

Over the next five years a competitive and yet collaborative site selection process played out and Lund, Sweden was chosen as the preferred site; the definitive selection of Lund was announced in Brussels on 28 May 2009. On 1 July 2010, the staff and operations of ESS Scandinavia were transferred from Lund University

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