Oak Ridge Makes History with Neutron Work
Published Apr 08, 2006
Resembling an airport in size, the Spallation Neutron Source sits about one mile from the main Oak Ridge National Laboratory campus.
When the Spallation Neutron Source came online at Oak Ridge on April 28, 2006, cheers went up ’round the world. Congratulatory e-mails flooded in, the scientific community went wild, and researchers everywhere started queuing up to take their turn at “beam time.”
But chances are, most people in the “outside world” have no idea what all the buzz is about. And most Tennesseans don’t realize the world-class powerhouse in their own backyard.
When you hear about results, though, you begin to understand its importance. The SNS – as the facility has been dubbed – is capable of firing a pulsing blast of subatomic particles designed to scatter neutrons in a virtually limitless number of materials. By studying the scattered neutrons, scientists can determine the structure and dynamics of those materials and use those findings to develop new and better products.
“Our dreams include lighter alloys that will make airplanes more fuel efficient,” says Jeffrey Wadsworth, laboratory director at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“Miniaturized motors and a new generation of batteries and fuel cells. Time-released drug delivery systems that target a specific body organ. Paints that extend the life of bridges. Advanced electronic materials that store more data and retrieve it more quickly.
“The list is literally endless, and all the discoveries, we believe, are within our reach.”
It’s no wonder that a group of touring European scientists, visiting the facility prior to its opening, issued a single brief statement. “America,” they wrote, “now has the greatest facility in the world for the study of materials.”
And it’s all in Tennessee. Located on 80 acres at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the SNS was built by a unique partnership of six Department of Energy laboratories at a cost of $1.4 billion. When the facility is fully operational in 2008, its neutron stream is expected to be 10 times more powerful than that produced by any other research facility in the world.
“That such a project of such incredible complexity could be designed and built by multiple laboratories … defied much of what we thought we knew about science and the political process,” Wadsworth says.
The state of Tennessee played a major role in the development of the SNS complex. In January 2000, the state General Assembly rushed through legislation in 16 days that provided a critical $28 million sales tax exemption on construction materials – a move that kept the project alive. The Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences, adjacent to the SNS and designed to attract some of world’s finest scientists, received an $8 million appropriation from the state.
And Gov. Phil Bredesen, a physicist himself, has pledged $10 million in recurring funds, matched by UT-Battelle, to hire world-class researchers to lead the institute.
Story by Diane Bartley
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