A new facility under construction in Clayton, Victoria will give scientists in Australia and New Zealand the opportunity to undertake research that currently only happens overseas.
Synchrotrons can tell us things about solids, liquids and gasses that are not revealed by any other method. In a normal laboratory, reactions proceed at a rate faster than data can be recorded. Using pulses of intense light synchrotrons enable scientists to study reactions at millisecond or even picosecond time frames. Slower reactions can be monitored in exquisite detail as they happen.
Synchrotrons have an application in almost every area of science, although there are only around 50 of them in the world.
Currently Australian scientists have to pack a bag, pay money and get in a queue to use a synchrotron, but that will change in 2007 when the Australian Synchrotron is opened in Melbourne.
CSIRO’s Dr Rod Hill, Group Executive, Information, Manufacturing & Minerals has been championing the Australian Synchrotron for ten years. He explains how it works:
'The machine contains a circular beam of electons that are zooming at nearly the speed of light (that is, about 300 000 km per second) around a ring and are steered in their orbit by very powerful magnets.'
“The synchrotron will help us understand how to make more effective drugs, improve sunlight-resistance in car paint and predict mineral deposits.”
Dr Rod Hill
Group Executive CSIRO’s Information, Manufacturing & Minerals
'When the electrons change direction due to the effect of the magnets, they give off intense beams of light or x-rays, similar to that used by doctors when you get an x-ray of your chest. The x-ray light from a synchrotron is highly intense and collimated and can be used to study basic properties of materials (example: their composition and structure) in very great detail and high precision.'
'For example, the synchrotron will help us understand how to make new and more effective drugs, improve sunlight-resistance in car paint and predict where the next Broken Hill mineral deposit will come from.'
The main building and basic synchrotron machine was funded by the Victorian government at a cost of A$157 million. The building was officially opened by Victoria’s Innovation Minister, Mr John Brumby, on 20 March 2005. It will open in 2007.
At points around the ring where the x-rays are permitted to emerge, scientists will collect data at stations or laboratories.
A consortium of eight external organisations have contributed A$40 million thus far into a funding pool directed at the construction of special experimental stations aimed at using the synchrotron light (called beamlines).
Present members of the consortium (Foundation Members) include the following Australian research organisations:
-
CSIRO
-
Melbourne University
-
Monash University
-
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO)
-
Government of Western Australia
-
Government of Queensland
-
Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI).
These organisations have been joined by a consortium of universities in New Zealand together with the New Zealand government.
Each of these parties has contributed A$5 million toward the capital cost of constructing laboratory stations around the ring.
CSIRO's A$5 million contribution consists of contributions from the Divisions that will have a direct and immediate use of the synchrotron, topped up with corporate funding.
The synchrotron will be formally open for business in 2007.
Discover more about our research in Materials Characterisation & Performance.
Site Map | Legal Notice and Disclaimer | Privacy | Copyright | Last updated: 24 January 2006
