Ion beam network set up to boost materials research across Europe

Eleven of Europe’s leading ion beam facilities have joined forces to create the Spirit network, which was officially launched earlier this month at the Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (FZD) Research Centre in Dresden, Germany. Spirit has €7 million in funding from the European Union and will be co-ordinated by the FZD.

The aim is to improve access to ion beam technologies for European scientists engaged in materials research. The technologies on offer provide important tools, in the production of surfaces with new or improved functions, for example, and also play an important role in the semiconductor industry. The network includes ion beam facilities in Germany, France, Belgium, Slovenia, Great Britain, Portugal, Croatia and Switzerland.

The network partners will offer transnational access to external users, with the EU covering the travelling and accommodation expenses of scientists, and supporting host laboratories with a user allowance. An international committee examines the applications for beam time under a common directive.

Spirit gives a flavour of how the European Commission could support the development of a European Research Area, allowing scientists from all over the continent to have access to scientific facilities in any country, making better use of the facilities that exist currently and avoiding the expense of duplicating expensive infrastructure in every member state.

The facilities involved in Spirit plan to carry out joint research projects, for example to improve the techniques and quality of targeted ion implantation on material surfaces, and to optimise methods for ion beam analysis. The partners will share the results of their research and make them available to external users. There will be regular meetings, exchange of scientific and technical staff as well as training weeks for technical personnel.

Meanwhile, Germany has opened three new experimental units for materials research at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt. The units have been set up alongside the GSI’s accelerator in a joint project by GSI, the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy, and the universities of Darmstadt, Dresden, Göttingen, Heidelberg, Jena and Stuttgart.

“This will allow us to conduct ion beam experiments for materials research at the Helmholtz Association in a single place that is ideally equipped for the task,” said the Helmholtz Association’s president Jürgen Mlynek. Until the end of 2006 the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy (formerly known as the Hahn-Meitner Institute) also operated an ion beam laboratory, whose experimental units have now been partially transferred to the GSI. The Berlin centre will now focus on neutron research and the operation and development of the BESSY II synchrotron radiation facility.

The merger was proposed by a committee of international experts and was funded by a €704,000 grant from the Helmholtz Association. The new units will allow scientists to build nanostructures and to study semiconductors and materials for use in the aerospace industry.

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