Oak Ridge Works on World-Class Neutron Source
Published Apr 08, 2005
The centerpiece of efforts to position Knoxville-Oak Ridge’s Innovation Valley as the next Silicon Valley is the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source, the world’s largest civilian science project. SNS will provide the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a science and technology laboratory managed for the U.S. Department of Energy by UT-Battelle, is overseeing construction of SNS, scheduled for completion in 2006 in Oak Ridge. Six DOE national laboratories are participating in its design and construction on an 80-acre site at ORNL.
Scientists describe SNS as an accelerator-based, high-energy proton source that will generate pulses of neutrons to examine the atomic properties of a variety of materials. By studying scattered neutrons, scientists can determine the structure and dynamics of materials.
SNS users will be able to use pulsed neutron beams almost 10 times more powerful than those at laboratories in Europe or Asia. Up to 2,000 researchers, including scientists and engineers from universities, industries and government laboratories, will visit the SNS each year. Their work could generate new business in chemicals, metals, plastics, pharmaceuticals and instrument development, according to SNS administrators.
SNS and the adjacent $65 million Center for Nanophase Materials Science – the DOE’s first nanoscale science center, opening in October 2005 – are key research tools for nanotechnology discoveries.
“Collectively, SNS and the center provide the foundation for ORNL to play a leadership role in nanotechnology,” says Tom Ballard, ORNL Director of Economic Development and Partnerships. “These capabilities have the potential to establish the Oak Ridge-Knoxville region as the next Silicon Valley.”
Story by Kay Brookshire
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