The Photon Factory (PF) is a synchrotron located at KEK, in Tsukuba, Japan, about fifty kilometres from Tokyo. [1]
The Photon Factory turned on its synchrotron for the first time in 1982, becoming the first light source accelerator in Japan to produce x-rays. [1] In 1997, it joined the Institute of Materials Structure Science (IMSS), a Japanese-run international particle physics organization based at KEK. [2]
The current head of the Photon Factory is N. Igarashi. [3]
There are two major facilities, the Photon Factory itself which is a 2.5GeV synchrotron with a beam current of around 450mA, and the PF-AR 'Advanced Ring for Pulsed X-Rays', which is a 6.5GeV machine running in a single-bunch mode with a beam current of around 60mA. It operates with a pulse width of about 100 picoseconds. [4]
The Photon Factory’s photon accelerator is one of the Institute of Materials Structure Science’s four quantum beams used for particle physics research. [1] Its macromolecular crystallography beam is used substantially for Japan's structural genomics project. [5] More recently, the Photon Factory has partnered with the Saha Institute and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre in India to create the Indian Beam, which is open to Indian particle and nuclear physicists to use for experiments in power diffraction, scattering, and reflectivity. [6]
Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and neutrons, while the study of combination of protons and neutrons is called nuclear physics.
DESY, short for Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, is a national research centre for fundamental science located in Hamburg and Zeuthen near Berlin in Germany. It operates particle accelerators used to investigate the structure, dynamics and function of matter, and conducts a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary scientific research in four main areas: particle and high energy physics; photon science; astroparticle physics; and the development, construction and operation of particle accelerators. Its name refers to its first project, an electron synchrotron. DESY is publicly financed by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Federal States of Hamburg and Brandenburg and is a member of the Helmholtz Association.
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a federally funded research and development center in Menlo Park, California, United States. Founded in 1962, the laboratory is now sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administrated by Stanford University. It is the site of the Stanford Linear Accelerator, a 3.2 kilometer (2-mile) linear accelerator constructed in 1966 that could accelerate electrons to energies of 50 GeV.
A synchrotron light source is a source of electromagnetic radiation (EM) usually produced by a storage ring, for scientific and technical purposes. First observed in synchrotrons, synchrotron light is now produced by storage rings and other specialized particle accelerators, typically accelerating electrons. Once the high-energy electron beam has been generated, it is directed into auxiliary components such as bending magnets and insertion devices in storage rings and free electron lasers. These supply the strong magnetic fields perpendicular to the beam that are needed to stimulate the high energy electrons to emit photons.
A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The strength of the magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed path increases with time during the accelerating process, being synchronized to the increasing kinetic energy of the particles.
The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is a multi-disciplinary research institute for natural and engineering sciences in Switzerland. It is located in the Canton of Aargau in the municipalities Villigen and Würenlingen on either side of the River Aare, and covers an area over 35 hectares in size. Like ETH Zurich and EPFL, PSI belongs to the ETH Domain of the Swiss Confederation. The PSI employs around 3000 people. It conducts basic and applied research in the fields of matter and materials, human health, and energy and the environment. About 37% of PSI's research activities focus on material sciences, 24% on life sciences, 19% on general energy, 11% on nuclear energy and safety, and 9% on particle physics.
The High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, known as KEK, is a Japanese organization whose purpose is to operate the largest particle physics laboratory in Japan, situated in Tsukuba, Ibaraki prefecture. It was established in 1997. The term "KEK" is also used to refer to the laboratory itself, which employs approximately 695 employees. KEK's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics, material science, structural biology, radiation science, computing science, nuclear transmutation and so on. Numerous experiments have been constructed at KEK by the internal and international collaborations that have made use of them. Makoto Kobayashi, emeritus professor at KEK, is known globally for his work on CP-violation, and was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Spallation is a process in which fragments of material (spall) are ejected from a body due to impact or stress. In the context of impact mechanics it describes ejection of material from a target during impact by a projectile. In planetary physics, spallation describes meteoritic impacts on a planetary surface and the effects of stellar winds and cosmic rays on planetary atmospheres and surfaces. In the context of mining or geology, spallation can refer to pieces of rock breaking off a rock face due to the internal stresses in the rock; it commonly occurs on mine shaft walls. In the context of metal oxidation, spallation refers to the breaking off of the oxide layer from a metal. For example, the flaking off of rust from iron. In the context of anthropology, spallation is a process used to make stone tools such as arrowheads by knapping. In nuclear physics, spallation is the process in which a heavy nucleus emits numerous nucleons as a result of being hit by a high-energy particle, thus greatly reducing its atomic weight. In industrial processes and bioprocessing the loss of tubing material due to the repeated flexing of the tubing within a peristaltic pump is termed spallation.
A particle beam is a stream of charged or neutral particles. In particle accelerators, these particles can move with a velocity close to the speed of light. There is a difference between the creation and control of charged particle beams and neutral particle beams, as only the first type can be manipulated to a sufficient extent by devices based on electromagnetism. The manipulation and diagnostics of charged particle beams at high kinetic energies using particle accelerators are main topics of accelerator physics.
Electron scattering occurs when electrons are displaced from their original trajectory. This is due to the electrostatic forces within matter interaction or, if an external magnetic field is present, the electron may be deflected by the Lorentz force. This scattering typically happens with solids such as metals, semiconductors and insulators; and is a limiting factor in integrated circuits and transistors.
SPring-8 is a synchrotron radiation facility located in Sayo Town, Sayo District, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, which is the main facility of Harima Science Garden City. It was developed jointly by RIKEN and the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, and is owned and managed by RIKEN, and run under commission by the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute. The machine consists of a storage ring containing an 8 GeV electron beam. On its path around the storage ring, the beam passes through insertion devices to produce synchrotron radiation with energies ranging from soft X-rays up to hard X-rays. The synchrotron radiation produced at SPring-8 is used for materials analysis and biochemical protein characterization by many Japanese manufacturers and universities.
J-PARC is a high intensity proton accelerator facility. It is a joint project between KEK and JAEA and is located at the Tokai campus of JAEA. J-PARC aims for the frontier in materials and life sciences, and nuclear and particle physics. J-PARC uses high intensity proton beams to create high intensity secondary beams of neutrons, hadrons, and neutrinos.
The European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Facility is an X-ray research laser facility commissioned during 2017. The first laser pulses were produced in May 2017 and the facility started user operation in September 2017. The international project with twelve participating countries; nine shareholders at the time of commissioning, later joined by three other partners, is located in the German federal states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. A free-electron laser generates high-intensity electromagnetic radiation by accelerating electrons to relativistic speeds and directing them through special magnetic structures. The European XFEL is constructed such that the electrons produce X-ray light in synchronisation, resulting in high-intensity X-ray pulses with the properties of laser light and at intensities much brighter than those produced by conventional synchrotron light sources.
Swapan Chattopadhyay CorrFRSE is an Indian American physicist. Chattopadhyay completed his PhD from the University of California (Berkeley) in 1982.
A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies to contain them in well-defined beams. Small accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle physics. Accelerators are also used as synchrotron light sources for the study of condensed matter physics. Smaller particle accelerators are used in a wide variety of applications, including particle therapy for oncological purposes, radioisotope production for medical diagnostics, ion implanters for the manufacturing of semiconductors, and accelerator mass spectrometers for measurements of rare isotopes such as radiocarbon.
A Fixed-Field alternating gradient Accelerator is a circular particle accelerator concept that can be characterized by its time-independent magnetic fields and the use of alternating gradient strong focusing.
The Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) is a Dresden-based research laboratory. It conducts research in three of the Helmholtz Association's areas: materials, health, and energy. HZDR is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.
The High Energy Accelerator Research Organization KEK digital accelerator (KEK-DA) is a renovation of the KEK 500 MeV booster proton synchrotron, which was shut down in 2006. The existing 40 MeV drift tube LINAC and RF cavities have been replaced by an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source embedded in a 200 kV high-voltage terminal and induction acceleration cells, respectively.
An energy recovery linac (ERL) is a type of linear particle accelerator that provides a beam of electrons used to produce x-rays by synchrotron radiation. First proposed in 1965 the idea gained interest since the early 2000s.
The Helmholtz Institute Jena was founded as an outstation of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung on June 25, 2009 and is located on the campus of the Friedrich Schiller University (FSU) in the city of Jena, Germany. Its purpose is to unite the research activities of the FSU in the fields of high intensity laser physics and x-ray spectroscopy with the expertise of the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf in the fields of accelerator physics, laser physics and x-ray technology. The research profile of the Helmholtz Institute Jena is focused on the physics occurring at the border between conventional particle-acceleration technology and the fast-evolving field of laser-induced particle acceleration.. It is concerned with advancing these new laser-induced accelerator concepts, as well as with the production and investigation of intense photon and particle beams, including their interaction with matter. Therefore the main activities of the institute are emphasized on the development of high intensity lasers, new concepts for laser-driven particle acceleration, x-ray spectroscopy and strong-field quantum electrodynamics, as well as on the physics of hot dense plasmas. Apart from that the Helmholtz Institute Jena aims to contribute to the further development of the research facilities at the Helmholtz center GSI, especially the future project FAIR, and DESY with the free-electron laser (FEL) photon sources FLASH and XFEL . In cooperation with the FSU Jena a completely diode-pumped laser system of the high energy petawatt class (HEPW) with the POLARIS laser is realized in the building of the Helmholtz Institute Jena. First measurements are done since 2008. Due to the missing last amplifier stage the pulse strength of 1 PW couldn't be reached yet. The graduate school "Research School for Advanced Photon Science" (RS-APS) was established at the Helmholtz Institute Jena in July 2012. The RS-APS supports up to 25 PhD students and provides a structured graduation program in cooperation with facilities of the FSU Jena and the Helmholtz Graduate School for Hadron and Ion Research (HGS-HIRe).