The European Spallation Source ERIC (ESS) is an international Research Infrastructure (RI) with the vision to build and operate the world’s most powerful neutron source, enabling scientific breakthroughs in research related to materials, energy, health, and the environment, and addressing some of the most important societal challenges of our time. The European Spallation Source will be up to 100 times brighter than existing spallation sources, thus providing the much-desired transformative capabilities for interdisciplinary research in the physical and life sciences.
The facility is under construction in Lund (Sweden), while the ESS Data Management and Software Centre (DMS) is based in Copenhagen (Denmark). The construction of the facility began in the summer of 2014 and is now 61% complete. A total of 15 instruments will be built during the construction phase to serve the neutron user community. In the long term, expansion of the suite up to 22 instruments is anticipated. First science is scheduled for 2023 and the start of user programme for the earliest instruments will follow. An estimated two to three thousand visiting scientists will come to ESS annually to perform experiments.
The ESS is a partnership of 13 Member Countries, namely Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The Organisation continuously explores possibilities to establish strategic partnerships with new countries. The international orientation of ESS can be seen throughout the entire organisation. The Lund-based staff now includes employees from around 50 different nations, including China.
To succeed in its mission ESS relies on the expertise of its partners from across Europe, and also from other areas of the globe. The European Spallation Source has a large network of laboratories to exchange knowledge, personnel, and experience with, and that in many cases will contribute directly to the project through In-Kind Contributions.
Neutrons are excellent for probing materials on the molecular level. For everything from motors and medicine, to plastics and proteins, detailed studies are dependent on how many neutrons can be produced by a neutron sources. This is a significant limitation for existing sources based on nuclear reactors. As a results, scientists and engineers have developed a new generation of neutron sources based on particle accelerators and spallation technology, a much more efficient approach.
More information can be found at https://europeanspallationsource.se/
