Compact Linear Accelerator for Research and Applications

The Compact Linear Accelerator for Research and Applications (CLARA) is a scientific user facility at Daresbury Laboratory. It is an electron linear accelerator (linac) currently under construction in the Electron Hall. CLARA is made up of three phases; Phase 1 is operational and has achieved energies of 50 MeV with bunch charges >250 pC. Phase 2 was constructed off-line and consists of three linacs delivering a total design energy of up to 250 MeV, 250 pC beam charge at 100 Hz repetition rate. On 2 April 2025, CLARA achieved the full design energy of 250 MeV through Phase 2, at a bunch charge of 60 pC. Phase 2 also consists of the Full Energy Beam Exploitation (FEBE) arc, a beamline which looks at plasma-wakefield acceleration, boosting the beam to energies of around 2 GeV for high energy experimentation. Phase 3 is future expansion for X-ray Free Electron Laser (X-FEL) construction. This 100 nm X-FEL is linked to the UK XFEL project.

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Sci-Tech Daresbury

Sci-Tech Daresbury, also known as Sci-Tech Daresbury Enterprise Zone, is a science and innovation campus near the village of Daresbury in Halton, Cheshire, England. The site began life as the Daresbury Laboratory later forming a joint venture and adding the Cockcroft Institute, Innovation Centre, Vanguard House, Hartree Centre, Techspace One, Techspace Two, Violet, Campus Technology Hub and ITAC. Nearly 2,000 people work on the campus for over 150 high tech companies. The science park was formerly known as Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus. In 2012 it was given enterprise zone status and renamed Sci-Tech Daresbury.

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Synchrotron Radiation Source

The Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) at the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, England was the first second-generation synchrotron light source to produce X-rays. The research facility provided synchrotron radiation to a large number of experimental stations and had an operating cost of approximately £20 million per annum. SRS had been operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. The SRS was closed on 4 August 2008 after 28 years of operation.

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NINA (accelerator)

NINA (National Institute's Northern Accelerator) was a particle accelerator located at Daresbury Laboratory, UK that was used for particle physics and as a source of synchrotron radiation.

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EMMA (accelerator)

The electron machine with many applications or electron model for many applications (EMMA) was a linear non-scaling FFAG (fixed-field alternating-gradient) particle accelerator at Daresbury Laboratory in the UK that could accelerate electrons from 10 to 20 MeV. A FFAG is a type of accelerator in which the magnetic field in the bending magnets is constant during acceleration. This means the particle beam will move radially outwards as its momentum increases. Acceleration was successfully demonstrated in EMMA, paving the way for future non-scaling FFAGs to meet important applications in energy, security and medicine. A linear non-scaling FFAG is one in which a quantity known as the betatron tune is allowed to vary unchecked. In a conventional synchrotron such a variation would result in loss of the beam. However, in EMMA the beam crossed these resonances so rapidly that their effect was not seen. EMMA used the ALICE accelerator as a source of electrons and was situated in the same laboratory (specifically, in one of the experimental areas at the base of the Nuclear Structure Facility tower) at STFC's Daresbury site. EMMA was a proof-of-principle machine; the experience gained in building this machine was useful for future muon accelerators (which could be used in neutrino factories), and also for proton and carbon ion particle accelerators, which have applications for cancer therapy. Non-scaling FFAGs are a good candidate for use in an accelerator-driven subcritical reactor system in which a non-critical fission core is driven to criticality by a small accelerator. Future electrical power generation could be influenced heavily by the use power stations consisting of a sub-critical core containing a material such as thorium, and a small accelerator capable of providing extra neutrons via a spallation target. EMMA was funded by the BASROC consortium, under the CONFORM umbrella. Commissioning of EMMA began in June 2010 when the beam was injected and sent around part of the ring. Full ring commissioning commenced in August 2010. In March 31 2011, full ring circumnavigation was completed to establish proof of principle. By May 2016, decommissioning of both EMMA and ALICE started, and in 2019 the process was completed, with most components being donated to other facilities.

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