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| The Australian National Beamline Facility |
| In Tsukuba, Japan, there is a giant factory, larger than a football field, producing tiny packets of light called photons. This Photon Factory is actually a state-of-the-art machine called a synchrotron, which produces extremely bright X-ray photons, and also aligns them into pinpoint beams of light. For the last twelve years, Australian scientists have been travelling to Japan to use these intense light beams to conduct more than 40 experiments a year. The X-ray beam that Australians use at the Photon Factory is called the Australian National Beamline Facility (ANBF). ANBF data is used for research on cancer treatments, forensics, materials science and biology, while Australian researchers have used data to analyse manufacturing, agricultural and food processes, newly-discovered minerals, water and soil pollutants, and much more. The ANBF uses a high-tech tunnel to guide light beams onto samples placed inside an experimental station. Researchers at the experimental station place their samples right in the middle of the lightbeam coming out of the tunnel. When the light hits the sample, the neatly aligned photons in the beam are scattered in different directions, creating distinctive patterns. The patterns produced by these scattered photons are captured using X-ray imaging plates and detector crystals. The ANBF works like a large very powerful microscope, allowing scientists to ‘see’ individual atoms in their samples. ‘Thanks to Japan’s Photon Factory, Australian scientists at the ANBF can map in minutes what a conventional laboratory machine would take hours to measure’, says Richard Garrett, Director of Australian Synchrotron Research Program. ‘Because Australians have been using the ANBF for twelve years, we now have the expertise to build and use our own photon factory—the Australian Synchrotron—which will open in Melbourne in 2007’. The Australian Synchrotron Research Program is funded by the Australian Government under its Major National Research Facilities program. Contact in Australia: Richard Garrett, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, NSW. Email: Richard.Garrett@ansto.gov.au Website: http://www.ansto.gov.au/natfac/index.html Ph: + 61 2 9717 3657 Fax: +61 2 9717 3145 Contact in Japan: Garry Foran, Australian National Beamline Facility, Photon Factory, Ibaraki Ph: +81-2-9864-7959 |
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