What is ESS?

The ESS project

• Research with Neutrons
  
• The ESS project

European Spallation Source (ESS) is based on a high power particle accelerator, which makes highly accelerated protons impinge on nuclei of heavy atoms. The collision breaks up the nuclei and among other fragments many neutrons are released (this procedure is called ‘spallation’). Neutron radiation is a powerful tool to study the fundamental behaviour of all kinds of materials, from machine parts to living matter, etc. ESS is based on the so-called long pulse source concept introduced by Ferenc MEZEI, a member the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This approach provides superior performance at lower costs compared to the most modern neutron research facilities in the world built in America and Japan, which are traditional short pulse sources. Along with Hungary, Sweden and Spain propose to host ESS, to be built, operated and used by a broad consortium of European countries. The more than 1 billion € project will need some 8 years to be built, and it will provide best in the world research capabilities for about 40 years to the now 5000 strong European neutron research community.

The planned ESS research centre will replace nuclear reactor-based technology in current facilities with accelerator-based spallation technology for producing neutrons for use in research. Furthermore, the ESS also represents a very substantial increase in the strength of the source - i.e. the flow of neutrons from the source. In the ESS, the flow of neutrons in the pulses will be about two orders of magnitude greater than at the most powerful neutron sources in full operation in the past decade. In combination with advances in instrumentation envisaged at ESS, this development will actually offer a revolution of up to 3 orders of magnitude gain in sensitivity of the experiments. It opens up totally new opportunities to examine the structure, function and development potential of materials. When complete, the ESS will be Europe's and the world's leading multidisciplinary centre for material research based on neutrons, and will represent a major contribution to the knowledge base for maintaining and advancing the economic competitiveness of the European Union.
ESS will open up fully new possibilities for the investigation of ultra-thin and laterally confined structures for e.g. reading devices in the IT industry, active site structures in enzymes, technologies for storing hydrogen for a sustainable energy economy, multi-component complex fluids in porous media for tertiary oil production, methane-water clathrates for natural gas production, or the templating of nanostructures for catalysts, medical implants, pharmaceuticals, photonic materials, etc. Novel detector, instrument and software technologies will also be drivers of innovation.
ESS will allow real time, real size, real life, in-situ neutron measurements of static and dynamic phenomena, providing movies of nano-scale events. In ESS, the neutron's unique properties (magnetic moment, sensitivity to hydrogen atoms, penetration capability in heavy materials, etc.) coupled with the unprecedented leap in beam intensity creates entirely new opportunities in dynamical and structural studies in biology and large molecules in solutions (folding of proteins), research into polymers and soft condensed matter science, real scale tomography and radiography of engineering materials, solid state physics and chemistry, and also for studies in particle physics using ultra-cold neutrons. ESS thus responds to future research requirements over a very broad range, with particular emphasis on soft, nanostructured and living matter.
The ESS is a 5 MW spallation neutron source with initially 20 instruments, upgradeable to more instruments, higher power and more target stations. About 1.3 GeV protons from a linear accelerator impinge on a heavy metal target to produce 2 ms long neutrons pulse. The highest priority new project of European neutron scattering since the early nineties, ESS will be the world’s leading neutron source, providing the highest neutron intensity (in several cases up to two orders of magnitude higher peak flux than by now leading facilities) and novel instrumentation as a unique tool for research into structure, characterisation, functions and dynamics of matter. Together with complementary capabilities provided by synchrotron sources, NMR, muons and e.g. electron microscopy this will provide Europe with a full range of the most advanced tools for research of materials. This Long Pulse facility (the concept of this technique was proposed and elaborated by F. Mezei) is well suited to the majority of instrumental requirements and significantly cheaper than the currently used or built short pulse facilities.