ESS – birth of the most powerful neutron source in the world
The European Spallation Source [ESS] is one of the largest science infrastructure projects being built in Europe today. Designed to generate neutron beams for science, ESS will benefit a broad range of research, from life science to engineering materials, from heritage conservation to magnetism.
The facility design includes a linear proton accelerator, a tungsten target station, twenty-two state-of-the-art neutron instruments, a suite of laboratories, and a supercomputing data management and software centre.
The facility is being built in Lund, Sweden, next to the synchrotron light source MAX IV currently under construction, and with the data management centre located in nearby Copenhagen. It is anticipated that two to three thousand guest researchers from universities, institutes and industry will visit ESS each year, making use of the range of neutron instruments to study their scientific questions.
With seventeen member countries, this next-generation research facility is being created through the collective effort of hundreds of scientists and engineers around Europe and worldwide. Together, they have developed and specified a technical design of the facility, including the accelerator, the target and instrument concepts. This resulted in the delivery of the ESS Technical Design Report and Project Specification in 2013.
On 9 October 2014, several hundred members of the European scientific community gathered at the ESS construction site in Lund, Sweden, for the ESS Foundation Stone Ceremony. The event was held to ‘lay the foundation’ both for the new facility, which has recently begun construction, and for a new generation of science in Europe.
For more information on the ESS, visit http://www.europeanspallationsource.se.
