50 Years - Science & Technology Facilities Council

Daresbury Laboratory 50 Years
Daresbury Laboratory
50 Years
The editors Tracy Turner and Jane Binks
would like to thank everyone who has
contributed towards the production of this
book, in particular:
Jim Clarke, Greg Diakun, Paul Durham,
Debbie Franks, Neil Marks, John Simpson,
Susan Smith and Andrew Taylor.
Design & Layout: STFC Media Services,
Daresbury Laboratory.
ISBN 978-0-9556616-8-6
© Science and Technology
Facilities Council 2012
Printed in England
Daresbury Laboratory
Sci-Tech Daresbury
Cheshire, WA4 4AD
www.stfc.ac.uk

Daresbury Laboratory
50 Years

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Foreword
Daresbury Laboratory has been in existence for 50 years,
and during which time the staff and scientist associated
with the Laboratory have undertaken a huge variety of
activities, which have shaped the Laboratory of today and
delivered both scientific and societal impact. This book
provides a pictorial chronicle containing highlights of the
journey of challenge, inspiration and endeavour across five
decades.
The journey began in 1960 when, with the backing of strong
research interests from Northern based universities, a high
level science advisory committee chaired by Sir John
Cockcroft recommended to the National Institute for
Research in Nuclear Science a design study for an electron
synchrotron at a new laboratory. The project was approved
in July 1962, and Professor Alec Merrison was officially
appointed as Director of the Laboratory. A site was
eventually identified near Daresbury in Cheshire which
offered an exceptionally stable foundation for the proposed
accelerator.
Under the dynamic leadership of Professor Merrison the first
scientific facility, a 5 GeV electron synchrotron accelerator
named NINA (National Institute’s Northern Accelerator) was
completed. In 1967 Prime Minister Harold Wilson formally
opened the Laboratory.
The 1970s saw Professor Alick Ashmore take over as
Director and on securing funding for both the Nuclear
Structure Facility (NSF) and the Synchrotron Radiation
Source (SRS) he was credited with leading the
transformation of Daresbury from a high energy physics
laboratory to an international centre for nuclear physics and
synchrotron radiation.
A new Director, Professor Leslie Green, arrived in 1981 and
the SRS came on line as the world’s first dedicated
X-ray synchrotron radiation source. This facility was hugely
successful, it was developed and upgraded over the
following 28 years and by the time it was switched off in
2008, it had delivered over 2 million hours of science and
had served many thousands of researchers. It was credited
with influencing cleaner fuel, safer aircraft and new
medicines, and contributing to a Nobel Prize or two!
Director Professor Alan Leadbetter arrived in 1988 to lead
Daresbury with an open and active style which was inspiring
to the staff but even he could not prevent the premature
closure of the NSF in 1993, due to a national crisis in
science funding. However the multidisciplinary strengths
built on the delivery and operation of three major facilities
gave the Laboratory resilience. Developments were made to
improve the capabilities of SRS on a number of fronts and
areas such as computational science and engineering grew
in strength.
It was at the end of the millennium that the Laboratory
faced the biggest test when, despite a vigorous campaign
led by Laboratory staff, the government announced that
DIAMOND, the 3rd generation synchrotron replacement for
the SRS, would be built on the Rutherford site. Never the
less a new millennium dawned, there was a real optimism
that exploiting the Laboratory’s strengths in accelerator
science and technology, high performance computing,
nuclear physics, engineering and instrumentation would
lead to further involvement in world-leading science.
Opportunities beckoned. This optimism proved well founded
and the last ten years has seen Daresbury delivering to
projects at the highest level across all these areas.
With the relevance of the Laboratory’s activities to industry
and society growing in importance, Dr. Hywel Price initiated
the processes which led to the formation of the Daresbury
Science and Innovation Campus, now Sci-Tech Daresbury.
Professor Colin Whitehouse’s drive and enthusiasm were
fundamental in developing these processes and building the
sustainable partnerships which have created an exciting
productive mix of science and innovation on campus,
attracting over 120 small high-tech companies.
The 50th anniversary finds an energetic laboratory
developing forefront science, supporting industry and
delivering solutions to grand challenges. This innovative
and inspiring environment is shared with an increasingly
diverse community, including a growing number of research
centres and a rapidly expanding cohort of successful hightech
businesses.
Building on the strengths of our outstanding achievements
in the last 50 years, the Laboratory has a bright future as a
beacon to light up opportunities for UK science and industry
while providing an immense and solid base for further
enterprise, development and growth at Sci-Tech Daresbury.
Professor Susan Smith
Head of Daresbury Laboratory
2

1960s
1962 saw the creation of Daresbury Laboratory, designed as a home for a new 5GeV electron synchrotron,
NINA (National Institute’s Northern Accelerator). Daresbury’s solid sandstone geology and ready access to
cooling water from the nearby Bridgewater Canal made it the perfect location, and construction on the site
began in 1963. This was completed in 1965 and the first beam was accelerated in NINA on 2 December 1966.
Around the same time, Daresbury was positioning itself as a leader in computational science, a position it
maintains to this day, acquiring its first mainframe computer in 1966 at a time when such devices were quite
rare. The then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, officially opened the Laboratory in 1967, laying down the
foundations for all of the science that has since come out of Daresbury.
3

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The letter from Lord Hailsham, the then Minister for Science and Technology, to Lord Bridges, Chair of the National Institute for
Research in Nuclear Science – NIRNS, in July 1962, authorising the commencement of the construction of the Electron Laboratory
at Daresbury Laboratory.
4

1960s
The deep foundations of the
National Institute Northern
Accelerator (NINA)
being cast in 1964.
NINA foundations rising from the ground. These were constructed on the underlying sandstone bedrock – one of the major reasons that the
Daresbury site was chosen.
5

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Drilling under the Bridgewater Canal, to lay a cooling water discharge pipe well away from the inlet, led to the canal bed collapsing and parts
of Moore village being flooded!
As the canal drained, the Warrington anglers turned out in force to save the fish.
6

1960s
NINA construction committee meeting in the Laboratory restaurant to celebrate the completion of the project
in December 1965.
In this aerial shot, adjacent to the Restaurant near the canal, you can see A Block construction commencing. B Block was the first office and
laboratory building, shown in the centre of the picture with the accelerator halls and associated workshops forming the heart of the site.
7

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The names on the board include Ernest Walton and John Cockcroft who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1951 for splitting the atom,
and leading nuclear and particle physicists such as Denys Wilkinson, Brian Flowers, John Holt and Otto Frisch.
In 1966, Professor Sir James Chadwick, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the neutron, celebrated his 75th birthday at
Daresbury Laboratory, with a ‘star studded’ list of guests who signed the board.
8

1960s
Laboratory staff positioning magnet coils during the assembly of NINA. These electro magnets (NINA had 40) steered the electron beam and
forced it through a circular path within a vacuum enclosure. Built in 1964 NINA was a 5GeV electron accelerator for particle physics studies.
Every 1/50th of a second the electron beam was extracted and sent to one of the four beamlines in the Outer
Hall. The beam sent to the experiments was either the 5GeV electrons or gamma rays (photons), which were
produced by colliding electrons with tungsten targets.
9

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The NINA magnet ring after completion in 1966. NINA was 220m circumference (diameter was 70.19m) and 5GeV.
10

1960s
In the main control room, the Rt. Hon Lord Harold Wilson (Prime Minister 1964 - 1970 | 1974 – 1976)
was invited by Professor Alec Merrison, Director Daresbury Laboratory, to switch on NINA in June 1967.
Prime Minister the Rt. Hon Lord Harold Wilson, OBE MP was the constituency MP for Huyton.
11

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Children of Laboratory staff at their Christmas party in 1969.
This cutaway diagram shows the electron synchrotron and experimental beamlines in the Outer Hall where particle physics experiments
were undertaken.
The purpose of NINA was to study particle physics, which investigates the nature of matter, and in particular the properties and behaviour
of the elementary particles, of which matter is composed.
NINA pointed a pathway to the quark, a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form protons and neutrons.
12

1960s
By 1968 the new A Block laboratory and office block was complete.
The site entrance and security lodge.
13

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The 1970s were all about improving facilities and adding capability for Daresbury Laboratory. In this decade
the Laboratory’s computing capability was significantly advanced with the installation of an IBM 370/165 and
the UK’s first Cray-1 supercomputer in 1977. Meanwhile, demand had grown for a dedicated accelerator for
research using synchrotron radiation, and the construction of the Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) began
once NINA had closed in 1977. This was the world’s first purpose built synchrotron radiation X-ray source.
Plans were first put forward for a Van de Graaff accelerator in 1972 and construction of the tower took place
throughout this decade.
14

1970s
The ‘Dooley Sculpture’ was erected in 1971 by the Liverpool artist Arthur Dooley. He was given
ten tons of magnetic steel and two 37 inch pole tips (previously designed by Sir John Cockcroft)
taken from the first small cyclotron to operate outside the USA. Dooley used the materials he
had been given to represent a beam splitting the uranium nucleus, adding the ‘Dove of Peace’
emerging among the fission products and emitted neutrons.
A new Daresbury Laboratory theory group was established in 1970 including atomic, molecular and solid state physics
and chemistry, and a youthful Jerry Hopkinson. The group interacted very closely with the Laboratory’s experimental
facilities and pioneered theoretical and computational developments in the scattering of nuclei, of electrons and photons
by atoms and of condensed matter spectroscopies such as X-ray absorption and photoemission. These activities were also
coupled to the university-based research community via the Collaborative Computational Projects – the famous CCPs.
15

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The Drawing Office in the seventies shows the tools of the trade that laid down the templates for the cutting edge
engineering which supported the world leading science.
The IBM 360/65 central computer at Daresbury Laboratory. This was the main data analysis system for NINA
and remote access was provided to a number of universities.
16

1970s
The Horizontal Wadsworth Monochromator built to exploit electromagnetic radiation emitted by NINA as part of the Synchrotron Radiation
Facility (SRF) established in the early 1970s. Along with other particle physics accelerators, scientists had been using the synchrotron radiation
(photons), emitted by the electrons traversing around the ring at close to the speed of light, because of its unique properties. By 1975 over 50
scientists with affiliations to more than 16 institutions were at work on NINA exploiting this by product of the particle accelerator.
17

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The Chairman of the Science Research Council, Professor Edwards, visited the SRF.
Professor Edwards was introduced to the SRF by Ian Munro, a founder of the facility,
standing in the background are Alick Ashmore and Bob Voss.
A Synchrotron Radiation Facility Conference in the Lecture Theatre, heralding the growth of a new science area.
18

1970s
Construction of the Nuclear Structure Facility (NSF) begins in the mid-1970s. Built by UK scientists and engineers to a unique design based on a
research and development programme at Daresbury, the NSF was housed in a steel pressure vessel, 45 metres high and 8 metres in diameter,
and was contained in a 70 metre high concrete tower. The concrete tower was ‘slipformed’ to a wall thickness of 1m – 700mm in ordinary
grey concrete with an outer 300mm width of white concrete. The ‘twin’ service tower is 71m high.
19

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Schematic of the NSF.
20

1970s
A section of the accelerator pressure vessel being lifted into
the tower.
General view of the NSF tower and buildings. The main framework for the ion source room can be seen at the top of the main tower.
21

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The completed NSF tower containing the 45m high accelerator vessel. The large injector at the top housed the ion sources and at
the ground level three large experimental areas accommodated the ion beams radiating from the analysing magnet at the base of
the machine.
The Synchrotron Radiation
Source, a 2GeV electron storage
ring, 96m in circumference, was
approved in 1975. NINA and the
SRF kept running until 1977.
22

1970s
NINA closing party invitation to users and staff in April 1977.
The SRS Linear accelerator the injection system consisted of a 80kV thermionic electron gun feeding a 12MeV electron linac,
the electron beam was then accelerated to 600MeV in a booster synchrotron. The beam was injected into the storage ring at
600MeV and the energy slowly increased over a couple of minutes to 2GeV. The storage ring was filled with electrons once
every 24 hours and the beam current would typically reduce by half over this time.
23

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
When NINA closed in 1977 work started on the construction of the SRS in the same building.
Overview of the storage ring with a large gantry to house control equipment, built above the ring.
The SRF team in the late 1970’s which included Ian Munro, John West, Pat Ridley, Samar
Hasnain, Joan Bordas, Ken Lea, Bill Smith and Jeff Worgan who all went on to have careers
on the SRS.
24

1970s
Seymour Cray was an
American electrical
engineer and
supercomputer architect
who designed a series of
computers that were the
fastest in the world for
decades. He visited the
Laboratory in 1979 to see
the newly installed Cray-1.
The Cray 1 at DL in 1979 with the IBM 370/165 console in the background. The Cray was capable of
performing over 100 million calculations per second; it was the first machine to merit the title of
supercomputer and heralded in a new era for the computational sciences.
25

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Aerial view of the Laboratory in the late 1970’s showing the addition of the tower buildings, the Stores building (far right) , the development
of C Block (central) and the office extension to E Block (bottom right).
The new SRS storage ring starts to take shape with a 500 MHz cavity and two of the 16 SRS dipoles in place.
26

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
1980s
In 1981 the construction, commissioning and testing of the facility that dominates the Daresbury Laboratory
site was completed - the Nuclear Structure Facility was born. Throughout the decade improvements were
made to existing facilities with an expansion of SRS and the addition of more beam lines.
27
27

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The Laboratory entrance with the recently completed tower in view. The NSF was inaugurated by the Rt Hon Sir Keith Joseph, MP, on
27 September 1983. Permission to leave the tower standing had to be obtained from the Local Authority and, in June 1992, the condition
requiring the tower to be demolished once it was no longer used for nuclear structure research was formally rescinded.
28

1980s
The SRS was designed as a 2GeV electron storage ring producing intense photon beams from the infrared through to the X-ray region of the
electromagnetic spectrum. The SRS ran from 1981 to 2008 and was the world’s first facility fully dedicated to the exploitation of synchrotron
radiation for fundamental and applied research.
Commemorative plaque for the official opening of the SRS
by the Rt. Hon. Mark Carlisle QC MP on 7 November 1980.
First beam in the SRS as seen on an oscilloscope in the
main control room at 21:30 on 30 June 1980.
29

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
General view of one of the first SRS beamlines. The Angular Dispersed Electron Spectroscopy experiment was connected to the
right hand fork of beamline 6, whilst another surface science station was at the end of the long straight section of beamline.
30

1980s
SRS Station 1 on beamline 8 was part of a joint agreement between the UK Science and Engineering Research Council
(SERC) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (ZWO).
Wiggler 1 contained a 5 Tesla superconducting magnet. This caused the electron beam to bend into a tighter arc stimulating the electrons to
emit higher energy X-rays than those produced by the 16 bending magnets that generated X-rays for the majority of the beamlines. Seven
experimental stations were fed from this wiggler on beamline 9. This wiggler magnet is currently on display in the outside class room at
Daresbury as part of the public and schools engagement programme.
31

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The first high resolution X-ray absorption near edge spectra (XANES) for copper and
manganese were recorded at the SRS, compared with theoretical calculations made at
Daresbury, and published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature in 1981.
Image Credit: Nature Publishing Group.
Helios was small but complete synchrotron radiation
source, utilising superconducting technology to
achieve a compact size. The machine was designed
between 1985-87 jointly by Daresbury Laboratory
staff and Oxford Instruments, who then manufactured
them. The first was supplied to IBM in 1991 for
computer chip lithography. The second was sold to a
new synchrotron radiation laboratory in Singapore.
32

1980s
The photons generated by the Synchrotron Radiation Source could be applied to a range of diverse scientific areas hence the variety of beam
lines constructed for experiments aimed at studying the structure and behaviour of materials at the atomic scale. Each beam line was tailored
to exploit a particular part of the electromagnetic spectrum. At its peak there were over 40 experimental stations available for the research
community 24 hrs a day, seven days a week.
Professor Leslie Green, the then Director Daresbury Laboratory speaking at the inauguration of
the NSF by the Rt.Hon Sir Keith Joseph in September 1983.
33

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Inside the NSF vessel. The NSF was a tandem electrostatic accelerator producing beams of heavy ions for basic research by university and
Daresbury scientists into the behaviour and properties of the atomic nucleus.
34

1980s
Geoff Meehan sat at the control panel during a visit of the Granada TV film unit to the NSF control room in 1984.
POLYTESSA is a very efficient detector of gamma radiation used to investigate rare atomic nuclei. These
nuclei are produced in nuclear reactions induced by the energetic beams from the NSF striking a target.
The exotic nuclei are selected and identified by the recoil separator and its detection system. The
experimenters were able to identify the heaviest nuclei with equal numbers of proton and neutrons.
35

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
An undulator is made up of a periodic set of magnets which cause the electrons to emit brighter, more intense light over a narrower
wavelength range.
The visible light emitted by the undulator
was carefully measured when it was first
installed to confirm the performance of the
device. The unusual distribution of colours
shown is due to interference effects which
the undulator relies upon.
36

1980s
An X-ray powder diffraction station on the wiggler beamline 9 of the SRS.
John Inglesfield, Martin Guest and Vic Saunders discussing the Floating Point Systems (FPS) 164
computer, which had an 11 MHz 64-bit processor and 4 MB memory.
37

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Inspection of magnets and vacuum vessel
for the high brightness lattice upgrade to
the SRS in 1987. In the 1980's the
demand for an improvement to the
brightness of the source emerged. As
early as 1980, Vic Suller had outlined an
advantageous modification to the
magnetic arrangement of the SRS. By
doubling the number of quadrupole
magnets it would be possible to keep the
SRS competitive even with the new
sources planned for construction in the
1990's elsewhere in the world.
The structure of the foot and mouth disease virus was solved using data acquired at the SRS in the late 1980s, and was the
first animal virus structure to be determined in Europe. In the 1980's the demand for an improvement (to parameters and
characteristics of the source) emerged.
38

1980s
Professor Leslie Green, Director Daresbury Laboratory, cutting
the 25 year celebration cake.
Schematic of the SRS facility in the late 1980s. In this schematic the SRS was just over half its final capacity with 20 stations.
39

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
SRS annual user meeting poster session, held in the SRS Outer Hall in the late 1980s.
Richard Blake with a Stardent console, a super workstation, and the Convex C220 for multi-user
data processing and computation in 1989.
40

1980s
Kevin Connell and Tom Aitken working on the new superconducting linear accelerator which was installed at the NSF in 1989, to increase the
energy of the beam, which widened the scope of experiments which could be undertaken.
41

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
This decade saw the Laboratory successfully pioneer the use of emerging parallel computing technologies in
real scientific problems. The Medium Ion Scattering facility (MEIS) and the National Centre for Electron
Spectroscopy and Surface analysis (NCESS) both opened in the 1990s in the wake of the closure of the NSF,
and these cutting edge facilities enhanced Daresbury’s position as a world leader in science. The 1990s also
saw the addition of more wigglers (magnets which affect the beam of radiation) to SRS and Daresbury
Laboratory’s first contribution to a Nobel Prize.
42

1990s
Neville Snodgrass looks on as Baroness Thatcher (Prime Minister 1979 - 1990) visited the Laboratory in 1990 and received a
gift from the apprentices.
43

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Professor Alan Leadbetter CBE, starts an annual Daresbury Dash in 1993. The Daresbury Dash was 21 years old in 2012.
Daresbury Laboratory was instrumental in
demonstrating the successful operation of a
national parallel supercomputing service based
on Intel systems installed in the early 1990s.
Jerry Thompson watches Baroness Thatcher, signing the Laboratory’s
visitor’s book.
44

1990s
Alan Leadbetter, Director Daresbury and Bill Gelletly, Head of the NSF, visit the machine operators in the control room. These include
Tom Aitken, Bill Silversides, Brian Blackwell & Tom Joy.
EUROGAM was a UK - France collaboration to build an array of gamma-ray detectors.
45

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The Medium Energy Ion Scattering (MEIS) facility. MEIS enabled the investigation of the surface structure and properties of crystalline
materials using an ion beam probe.
This magnet generated a field of 6 Tesla pushing the X-ray photon energy even higher than on beamline 9. Five
experimental stations were built on beamline 16.
46

1990s
Sparks inside the tank of the Van de Graaff accelerator. The high voltage held at the centre of the
accelerator discharges in a similar way that a lightning bolt discharges a cloud. The centre terminal was
charged up to 20 million volts.
The NSF was switched off for the last time at the end of March 1993, by Tom Joy and John Beech. During the lifetime
of the Facility beams of 39 elements, from hydrogen to uranium, were generated and when the different isotopes are
counted the number of species totalled 84.
47

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
SRS Station 7.4 was used to develop X-ray detector systems with applications in the
understanding of catalytic reactions.
Nobel Prize winner, Sir Nevill Mott, visited
the Mott polarimeter on Station 1.2 of the
SRS. He was in his 90th year and it was the
first and only time that he ever saw a Mott
polarimeter, which was used in the study
of magnetic materials.
48

1990s
Inside the surface science experimental chamber on SRS station 6.1.
Professor Alan Leadbetter CBE,
Director Daresbury Laboratory 1988
- 1994, was awarded a CBE in the
1994 New Year Honours list.
One of the first advanced
engineering X-ray
monochromator designs
developed for the SRS was
exploited at other light sources
in the world, for example at the
Trieste facility in Italy.
49

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The first Nobel Prize associated with Daresbury
Laboratory. Sir John Walker won a share of the
1997 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for solving the
structure of the F1 ATPase enzyme using the SRS.
The high resolution Scienta ESCA300 X-ray spectrometer arrived from ICI Wilton as part of the setting up of a new Research Unit for Surfaces,
Transforms and Interfaces (RUSTI) in the mid-1990s. The centre later became known as National Centre for Electron Spectroscopy and Surface
analysis (NCESS).
50

1990s
In 1998 SRS stations 6.1 and 6.2 were closed to make way for a new facility known as PHOENIX which
received more intense radiation generated by a newly installed multipole wiggler device in the SRS.
HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the Laboratory in July 1998.
51

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The final set of improvements to the
SRS machine came in the form of
multipole wiggler magnet arrays
which were designed to enhance
the intensity of the X-ray beams
produced. The first two were
installed for beamlines 6 and 14.
During 1999 trade unions at Daresbury Laboratory led a campaign to secure the new Diamond synchrotron at the Laboratory.
The Daresbury designed facility now operates as the UK National Synchrotron Source.
52

2000s
The new millennium marked a new era for Daresbury Laboratory. In March 2000 the decision was taken to
locate the Diamond Light Source synchrotron in Oxfordshire and, shortly afterwards, to build the SuperSTEM
electron microscopes at the Laboratory. In 2002 HPCx, a national supercomputing service, was located at the
Laboratory. This called on the Laboratory’s expertise in operating and writing code for parallel computers. The
decade also saw a close relationship form between Daresbury Laboratory and the North West Regional
Development Agency (NWDA) and this lead to the establishment of the Daresbury Innovation Centre designed
to promote knowledge exchange between new science and technology businesses and the skills and expertise
present in the Laboratory. The Cockcroft Institute, a world leading centre for particle accelerator science and
technology, opened in 2006.
53

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Lord Sainsbury of Turville inaugurated the first SuperSTEM high resolution microscope facility at the Laboratory in 2002.
The world’s largest model of DNA measures 10.78 metres high and
includes 250 base pairs. It was created by Keele University and
Daresbury Laboratory and was unveiled at the Potteries Shopping
Centre in Hanley, Stoke on Trent on 9 March 2002.
Daresbury Laboratory engineers developed one of the most
advanced X-ray detection systems for the high data rates
generated with advanced synchrotron sources. The system is
known as RAPID and has been exploited at Diamond, in Japan
and Europe.
54

2000s
A wooden shovel, dating from the early bronze age, survived in a remarkable state of preservation in the copper mines of Alderley Edge,
Cheshire. Other historic timbers recovered from the mines, whilst still intact, have fared less well. An X-ray investigation, using the SRS
station 16.5, measuring the copper and arsenic chemical speciations provided clues to the methods by which metals from the mining
environment entered the wood of the shovel and ensured its survival. Pictured here with Andy Smith. Following the closure of the SRS in
2008 the station was gifted to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester for display in 2013.
HPCx began operation at Daresbury, in a collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, in 2002 as the 9th most powerful
computer in the world.
55

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
A further multipole wiggler was installed in the SRS to create a new beamline for protein crystallography, which was commissioned in 2004.
The station contained a new MAR desktop beamline with CryoSampleChanger, capable of storing up to 19 samples at time.
Samar Hasnain looks on as Sir Tom Blundell and SRS Director Ian Munro cut the cake to celebrate 25 years of SRS operations.
56

2000s
The Accelerators and Lasers In Combined Experiments (ALICE) facility was conceived as a prototype facility for new advanced light
sources. Key components were assembled in clean room conditions.
ALICE magnets - receiving the equipment are Vic Suller, Elaine Seddon, Wendy Flavell, Mike Poole,
Peter Weightman, Nick Johns and Hywel Price, the then Director Daresbury
57

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
ALICE (originally known as ERLP (Energy Recovery Linac Prototype)) under construction. ALICE was the first Energy Recovery Linac
accelerator to be built in Europe. This new type of accelerator can generate much brighter electron beams than conventional
synchrotrons and is being pursued by many laboratories around the world.
Sir David King, the then Chief Scientific Advisor, opened the Science and Innovation Centre in 2006. Watching were Colin Whitehouse,
Director Daresbury and John Wood, the CEO of the Council for the Central Laboratories of the Research Councils (CCLRC).
58

2000s
Lord Sainsbury of Turville,
the then Science Minister,
inaugurated the Daresbury
Science and Innovation
Campus in 2006.
By 2007, the HPCx system had been upgraded (phase 2) delivering a peak computational power of 15.3 million million
calculations per second (teraflops). HPCx delivered scientific output in a diverse range of academic areas including
the design of new materials, computational fluid dynamics, fusion research, atomic and molecular physics and climate
modelling. The service was also used for commercial research work notably in oil reservoir detection and
characterisation.
59

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The inauguration of the Cockcroft Institute, a collaboration between Liverpool, Manchester, Lancaster Universities and STFC, was carried out
by Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the then Science Minister, on 19 September 2006. Mike Poole and John Dainton were joined by members of
John Cockcroft’s family.
Professor Neil Marks conducting the choir at Daresbury All Saints Church. The choir includes Bill Silversides, Richard Farrow, Neville
Snodgrass, Debbie Franks, Marion Bowler, Neil Bliss, Ron Makin and Mike Miller to name a few.
60

2000s
SRS Directorate - from left to right, Paul Quinn, Elaine Seddon, Pat Ridley & Tracy Turner.
Professor Ian Munro, an early pioneer of synchrotron radiation exploitation at
Daresbury Laboratory, switched off the SRS on 4 August 2008 after over 2 million
hours of beam for science. A message celebrating the 27 years of operation was
displayed on the monitors around the facility during the final hours of operation.
SRS research has advanced many areas from research in HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s disease, malaria and Motor Neuron Disease, cleaner fuel and lower
emissions from car exhausts to safer aircraft and even archaeological
conservation.
61

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Professor Colin Whitehouse, Director Daresbury, introduces the Duke of Kent, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, to the
capabilities of STFC during a visit to Daresbury on 13 November 2008. Professor Keith Mason, CEO, Science and Technology Facilities Council
(STFC) looks on.
For several years children supported by the Chernobyl
Children’s Life Line Charity have visited Daresbury
Laboratory on an annual basis as part of their respite
care. A four week trip to the UK can extend their life
expectancy by as much as 2 years.
62

2000s
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009 was
awarded jointly to Venkatraman
Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E.
Yonath ‘for studies of the structure and
function of the ribosome’. Professor
Ramakrishnan used the SRS in his work on the
Ribosome.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
63

50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Precision alignment of the EMMA acclelerator, EMMA (Electron Machine of Many Applications) is the world’s first non-scaling 'fixed-field
alternating gradient' (FFAG) accelerator, and is capable of acceleration at rates much faster than conventional synchrotrons. Commissioning of
EMMA started in 2010.
64

2010s
In this decade Daresbury Laboratory has continued to add to its facilities and scientific capabilities with the
addition of Blue Joule, the UK’s fastest supercomputer, and with the initiation of construction of the Electron
Beam Test Facility (EBTF) in 2011. The Laboratory also contributed to another Nobel Prize in 2010 when
Graphene earned Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov the Nobel Prize for Physics. They had used the
SuperSTEM microscopes at Daresbury Laboratory in some of their work.
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50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Susan Smith, Swapan Chattopadhyay and Mike Poole celebrate with the team the first lasing of the ALICE free electron laser in
October 2010. The ALICE Infrared Free Electron Laser (IR-FEL) was one of the major projects ALICE was designed to deliver.
The achievement of FEL lasing in 2010 was the first operation of a FEL driven by an energy recovery accelerator in Europe.
The multidisciplinary team on ALICE celebrate the FEL lasing. The infrared FEL light is being used by an international team led by
Peter Weightman to develop a new technique for cancer diagnosis.
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2010s
The completed EMMA ring – the world’s first non-scaling fixed field alternating gradient accelerator ( FFAG).
FFAGs accelerate a beam of charged particles from low to high energy with particle orbits at different radii
depending on the energy of the beam.
HRH Prince Andrew, Duke of York, visited Daresbury Laboratory and the Campus in April 2010.
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50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The Prime Minister, David Cameron, visited in August 2011 and announced £10M of scientific investment into the Laboratory and the
establishment of a new Enterprise Zone at the Daresbury Campus.
In August 2011, the Laboratory held its first public and family access days, which will become an annual event.
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2010s
A School Science Prize winner being presented her Science book by Professor Susan Smith, Head of Daresbury Laboratory in 2012. This is an
annual event where students from around the local area are invited to the Laboratory, chosen by their teacher for their special efforts.
Joanne Brown and Tracy Turner celebrate the Laboratory as part of STFC (Science and Technology
Facilities Council) receiving a Silver Investors in People award 2012.
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50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
The flag flying to celebrate Daresbury Laboratory’s 50 year anniversary in 2012.
In February 2011, the Laboratory’s Innovations Technology Access Centre (I-TAC) played host to the National Geographic Channel’s CSI.
The episode featured investigation of dinosaur skulls within the I-TAC multiuser facility which is used by academics and industry.
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2010s
Professor John Womersley CEO STFC and Simon Pendlebury, Vice President Storage, Europe, IBM
Systems & Technology Group sign a joint venture agreement in March 2012, starting a three year
collaboration. The IBM Blue Gene/Q at Daresbury Laboratory, named Blue Joule, has been ranked
number one in the UK, and number 13 in the world.
IBM Blue Gene installation.
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50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Jeremy Clayton, Director of the Research Base from the Department of Business Innovation and Skills visited Daresbury
Laboratory in August 2012 to see the progress with recent investment of £40M in the Laboratory, including the assembly of modules
for the Electron Beam Test Facility. Neil Bliss, Peter McIntosh and Neil Geddes discuss status of the accelerator module with the Director.
The winning team of the Daresbury Summer Olympic Games 2012.
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2010s
SuperSTEM played a part in the Laboratory’s 3rd Nobel
Prize, awarded in 2010, for the discovery of graphene by
Konstantin Novoselov (above) and Andre Geim.
Students from schools across the North West joined scientists from the Cockcroft Institute (CI) at Daresbury Laboratory for the
annual Particle Physics Master Class. Building on the successes of previous years, it acknowledges the unique opportunities
available in running a master class at a national laboratory.
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50 Years Daresbury Laboratory
Daresbury Laboratory and Sci-Tech Daresbury campus in 2012 including Vanguard House,
The Cockcroft Institute, and the Daresbury Innovation Centre in the foreground.
A 20 year vision for the development of the Sci-Tech Daresbury Campus.
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