Project Pioneer Attends Foundation Stone Ceremony

Professor Bob Cywinski from the University of Huddersfield was amongst other leading European scientists guests attending the recent ground-breaking ceremony of one of Europe’s most ambitious construction projects – the European Spallation Source  (ESS) being constructed in Lund, Sweden.

This two-billion euro “super microscope”, will enable thousands of researchers to see and understand the atomic structure of materials, restoring Europe’s lead in neutron beam science and its use of “spallation” – the process of deploying a particle accelerator to scatter or chip neutrons from a hard metal target – which represents a major advance on the more usual nuclear reactor-based technology.

It is hoped that the first neutrons will be produced by 2019 and it is estimated that eventually some 3,000 scientists a year will use the ESS for research into fields that include computer components, fuel cells, textiles, medicines, transport, food technology, DNA and cosmetics.

Professor Cywinski’s contribution to the evolution of ESS has included a key role in spreading public awareness of the project, including production of a promotional movie fronted by the actor Sir Patrick Stewart, who is Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield.  Also present at the ceremony were the University of Huddersfield’s Professor Sue Kilcoyne, plus Professor Colin Carlile, a central figure in the development of the ESS who is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Huddersfield.

Other University colleagues closely involved in the development of the ESS include Professor Roger Barlow, Dr Cristian Bungau and Dr Adriana Bungau, who have carried out crucial calculations. It is hoped that there will be continued involvement in the design of instrumentation and the accelerators. Huddersfield’s Professor Rebecca Seviour spent a year in Lund seconded to the ESS project as a physicist, helping the development of the powerful ESS accelerator during its design phase.