The Diamond Light Source, the UK’s new synchrotron facility in Oxfordshire, has welcomed its first scientific users after opening its doors for business in February. The projects, selected from 127 proposals received last year, cover a broad range of research, from cancer studies, to advancing data-storage techniques, to unravelling the mysteries of the solar system. They will provide the teams at Diamond with real projects to assist in the six-month period of fine-tuning the first experimental stations.
These first research projects will be carried out in beamlines that are part of Phase I of Diamond’s development – comprising the buildings, the synchrotron itself and the first seven beamlines. Phase I investment of £260 million from the UK government (86%) via the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust (14%), was used to deliver the facility on time, on budget and to specification. Funding for Phase II of the project – a further £120 million – was confirmed in October 2004 and will be used to build 15 additional beamlines to expand the available range of research applications. Construction has already started on the Phase II beamlines and beyond this, on average four to five new beamlines will be available each year until 2011.
