CFI Invests $15 Million for International Beam Research

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HAMILTON, October 17, 2003—Today, Carmen Charette, Senior-Vice President of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) was joined by Stan Keyes, Member of Parliament for Hamilton West, on behalf of Industry Minister Allan Rock, to announce a $15 million CFI investment for an international collaboration involving McMaster University. The CFI’s investment is for the design and construction of one of 24 beamlines at Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee.

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This initiative ensures Canada’s increased capacity in using neutrons as a research tool at the international level. The SNS will be the world’s most intense source of neutrons for beam research in materials science and will also be a facility open to scientists and engineers from universities, industries, and government laboratories worldwide. Canada’s beamline at the SNS will be known as Vulcan—a neutron diffraction instrument designed for engineering materials applications, an area in which Canada has distinctive experience and expertise.

“Projects like this allow Canada to participate in the initial wave of leading-edge science which increases the visibility and enhances the interaction of Canadian researchers with their international peers,” said Ms. Charette.

More than ever, major research facilities such as x-ray and neutron sources are used to understand and “engineer” materials at the atomic level. Such materials have greatly improved properties, offering both better performance and new applications. For example, things like jets, credit cards, pocket calculators, and compact discs have all been improved by neutron-scattering research.

“This is an area of research in which Canada has traditional strengths, especially at McMaster University,” said Mr. Keyes, on behalf of Industry Minister Allan Rock. “The research team is undoubtedly the most capable in the world for the construction of this leading-edge beamline which will enable research that was previously impractical or beyond the capabilities of the current technology.”

McMaster University will collaborate with the ORNL and the University of Tennessee, which has expertise in some instrumentation and operates the laboratory. Other American universities involved in this initiative include: Duke, Florida, Georgia State, Virginia, North Carolina, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Today’s funding announcement is the third of nine large-scale international research projects under the CFI’s International Funds which enable Canadian researchers to collaborate with the best in the world, in many subject areas, for the benefit of Canadians. Later today, the CFI will also announce funding to the University of Victoria totaling $31.9 million for the NEPTUNE Canada project—a network of remote-controlled observatories on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

The CFI is an independent corporation established by the Government of Canada in 1997 to strengthen the capacity of Canadian universities, colleges, research hospitals, and other non-profit research organizations to carry out world-class research and technology development.

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