Established | 1957 |
---|---|
Laboratory type | National scientific research laboratory |
Field of research | |
Staff | 1,200 |
Location | Chilton, Oxfordshire, England 51°34′24″N1°18′53″W / 51.57333°N 1.31472°W |
Operating agency | Science and Technology Facilities Council |
Website | www |
Map | |
The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). [1] It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the Atlas Computer Laboratory in 1975 to create the Rutherford Lab; then in 1979 with the Appleton Laboratory to form the current laboratory.
It is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. It has a staff of approximately 1,200 people who support the work of over 10,000 scientists and engineers, chiefly from the university research community. The laboratory's programme is designed to deliver trained manpower and economic growth for the UK as the result of achievements in science.
RAL is named after the physicists Ernest Rutherford and Edward Appleton.
The National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science (NIRNS) was formed in 1957 to operate the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory established next to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment on the former RAF Harwell airfield between Chilton and Harwell. The 50 MeV proton linear accelerator [2] was transferred from the Atomic Energy Research Establishment to the new laboratory to become a national facility for particle physics as the Nimrod. Some components of this linear accelerator are still operating as part of the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source injector linac over 50 years after their first use. [3] Since then the laboratory has grown both with the expansion of its established facilities, and the incorporation of facilities from other institutions to provide the benefits from economies of scale. The major mergers were in 1975 with the adjacent Atlas Computer Laboratory creating the Rutherford Laboratory, and then in 1979 with the Appleton Laboratory to form the current Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. With the closure of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in 1998, some small offices also moved to RAL. Similarly, laser technology moved to RAL from Joint European Torus at Culham to become the foundation of the Central Laser Facility.
To be able to decide the priorities for government funding across all areas of scientific research, the Science & Technology Act of 1965 [4] created the Science Research Council (SRC) which took over management of the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory from NIRNS along with many other previously disparate UK science bodies. To prioritise economic impact over blue skies research, the SRC became the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) in the early 1980s, and in 1994, [5] the SERC was eventually divided into three Research Councils (the EPSRC, PPARC and the CCLRC – which took responsibility for RAL from EPSRC in 1995 [6] ), so that each could then focus its development around one of three incompatible business models – administratively efficient short duration grant distribution, medium term commitments to international agreements, long-term commitments to staff and facilities provision. To unify the planning of the provision for UK scientists to access large national and international facilities, [7] in 2007 the CCLRC merged with PPARC and incorporated the nuclear physics discipline from EPSRC to create the Science and Technology Facilities Council which then took responsibility for RAL. [8]
The site hosts some of the UK's major scientific facilities, including:
Also hosted are:
In addition to hosting facilities for the UK, RAL also operates departments to co-ordinate the UK programme of participation in major international facilities. The largest of these are the areas of particle physics, and space science.
In particle physics the largest international project is the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, but RAL has a major role in the UK participation in several other projects such as: [16]
In space science, RAL builds components for, and tests satellites, as well as receiving, analysing and curating the data collected by those spacecraft. [17] Satellite missions in which RAL has a significant role include:
This section possibly contains original research .(June 2010) |
In recent years, there has been an increasing political drive towards requiring that the science undertaken at RAL and the technology created there result in a proportional economic benefit to the UK to justify the investment of public funds in the laboratory. RAL management has argued that this is achieved in various ways, including:
According to its Annual Report from 2017 to 2018, STFC expects the end of the ISIS pulsed neutron source and the associated Second Target Station to be in 2040 and anticipates decommissioning to take 55 years. The cost of radioactive waste disposal could range between £9 million and £16 million. [19] : 51
RAL was used as a set for the filming of an episode of Terry Nation's BBC TV series Blake's 7 .
The computer-generated imagery (CGI) for Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien were created at the Atlas Computer Laboratory which is now part of RAL.
The Space Science department featured in the "In the Box" episode of the CBeebies series Nina and the Neurons .
The Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) was a UK government body that carried out civil research in science and engineering.
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron light source science facility located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
The Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) and its predecessor the Science Research Council (SRC) were the UK agencies in charge of publicly funded scientific and engineering research activities, including astronomy, biotechnology and biological sciences, space research and particle physics, between 1965 and 1994.
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.
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.
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is an accelerator-based neutron source facility in the U.S. that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development. Each year, the facility hosts hundreds of researchers from universities, national laboratories, and industry, who conduct basic and applied research and technology development using neutrons. SNS is part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is managed by UT-Battelle for the United States Department of Energy (DOE). SNS is a DOE Office of Science user facility, and it is open to scientists and researchers from all over the world.
The ISIS Neutron and Muon Source is a pulsed neutron and muon source, established 1984 at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. It uses the techniques of muon spectroscopy and neutron scattering to probe the structure and dynamics of condensed matter on a microscopic scale ranging from the subatomic to the macromolecular.
George Ernest Kalmus, CBE, FRS is a noted British particle physicist.
Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory based at Sci-Tech Daresbury campus near Daresbury in Halton, Cheshire, England. The laboratory began operations in 1962 and was officially opened on 16 June 1967 as the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory (DNPL) by the then Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Harold Wilson. It was the second national laboratory established by the British National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science, following the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory. It is operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, part of UK Research and Innovation. As of 2018, it employs around 300 staff, with Paul Vernon appointed as director in November 2020, taking over from Professor Susan Smith who had been director from 2012.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astronomy.
The electron machine with many applications or electron model for many applications (EMMA) is a linear non-scaling FFAG particle accelerator at Daresbury Laboratory in the UK that can accelerate electrons from 10 to 20 MeV. A FFAG is a type of accelerator in which the magnetic field in the bending magnets is constant during acceleration. This means the particle beam will move radially outwards as its momentum increases. Acceleration was successfully demonstrated in EMMA, paving the way for future non-scaling FFAGs to meet important applications in energy, security and medicine.
The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is a 700-acre science and technology campus in Oxfordshire, England. Over 6,000 people work there in over 240 public and private sector organisations, working across sectors including Space, Clean Energy, Life Sciences and Quantum Computing.
A neutron research facility is most commonly a big laboratory operating a large-scale neutron source that provides thermal neutrons to a suite of research instruments. The neutron source usually is a research reactor or a spallation source. In some cases, a smaller facility will provide high energy neutrons using existing neutron generator technologies.
The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), formerly known as the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (LAMPF), is one of the world's most powerful linear accelerators. It is located in Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in Technical Area 53. It was the most powerful linear accelerator in the world when it was opened in June 1972. The technology used in the accelerator was developed under the direction of nuclear physicist Louis Rosen. The facility is capable of accelerating protons up to 800 MeV. Multiple beamlines allow for a variety of experiments to be run at once, and the facility is used for many types of research in materials testing and neutron science. It is also used for medical radioisotope production.
NINA (Northern Institute's Nuclear Accelerator) was a particle accelerator located at Daresbury Laboratory, UK that was used for particle physics and as a source of synchrotron radiation.
John M. "Jack" Carpenter was an American nuclear engineer known as the originator of the technique for utilizing accelerator-induced intense pulses of neutrons for research and developing the first spallation slow neutron source based on a proton synchrotron, the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS). He died on 10 March 2020.
The Richard Glazebrook Medal and Prize is awarded annually by the Institute of Physics to recognise leadership in the field of physics. It was established in 1966 and named in honour of Sir Richard T. Glazebrook, the first president of the Institute of Physics. It was originally a silver medal with a £250 prize.
Science tourism is a travel topic grouping scientific attractions. It covers interests in visiting and exploring scientific landmarks, including museums, laboratories, observatories and universities. It also includes visits to see events of scientific interest, such as solar eclipses.
Andrew Dawson Taylor was director of the Science and Technology Facilities Council National Laboratories – Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Daresbury Laboratory, and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh until his retirement in 2019.
Zoë Althea Bowden is a British physicist and instrumentation scientist who was involved in the construction of the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source. She was awarded an Order of the British Empire in the 2023 New Year Honours in recognition of her services to science.