Dr Dominic Ryan

The CNF View from the Scientific Community

By Dr Dominic Ryan

A recent article in RE$EARCH MONEY (R$, March 18/04) summarized the achievements of the past six years by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). While CFI has certainly been a great boon to researchers in Canadian universities, the Canadian Institute for Neutron Scattering (CINS) has a very different view of Canada’s ‘Big Science’ landscape than was presented in that article, particularly when considering the proposed Canadian Neutron Facility (CNF).

The article suggested that Canadian access to the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), currently under construction by the US Department of Energy in Tennessee, might eliminate the need for construction of the CNF in Canada. This view demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of the relative scales and national roles of these two projects.

CINS represents an active community drawn from over 30 science and engineering departments in universities all across Canada, from industry and from government labs. Our research programs depend on access to Canada’s Neutron Beam Laboratory at the NRU reactor located in Chalk River, ON. The operation of this national facility is managed by the National Research Council (NRC) and funded by NRC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and fees from industry clients. It is the centre of a vibrant and diverse user community that includes Canadian researchers and students of physics, chemistry, biology, materials science, engineering and geology. Access is through a competitive peer-review process and the neutron experiments generate knowledge about materials of all kinds; from steel to superconductors, from biomaterials to exotic minerals. The CNF is the proposed replacement for NRU.

A $15-million CFI grant championed by Dr Bruce Gaulin of McMaster University has enabled Canadian participation in the SNS. Established Canadian researchers are engaged in the design and construction of ‘best in class’ instruments to be located at the SNS, a neutron source of unprecedented scale. The CFI funding will open priority access to 5% of the available beam time at the SNS to Canadian researchers. The remarkable capabilities of the SNS source and its instrument suite will enable qualitatively new science, and Canadians will lead many individual projects. However, these Canadian researchers will not be trained at the SNS, nor will their projects be developed at the SNS. The neutron beam instruments at NRU are 100% occupied, and 90% by the user community. It is at NRU that new Canadian researchers are trained and undertake highly innovative experiments that lead to new discoveries. The successful CFI application for participation in the SNS was possible because Canada has a prestigious, lively community of neutron scattering researchers, which have been and can only be fostered through access to a Canadian national neutron beam laboratory.

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) recognizes the urgent need for investment in the CNF, and has consistently recommended funding of the CNF as a top priority for government investment. Advocacy by the CAP raises the CNF debate beyond the immediate community of neutron scattering users, and places it within the larger framework of responsible stewardship of Canada’s ‘Big Science’ infrastructure, which is a subject of active consideration by NRC, NSERC and Canada’s learned societies.

Obviously, investing in new equipment does not equate to increased knowledge and social impact, which demand the building of a scientific community, training and attracting talented researchers to Canada and engaging people to collaborate in fundamental research and industrial innovation. Experience in other countries has shown that without a domestic neutron source, the community vanishes. Investment in hardware at a foreign neutron facility alone cannot sustain or expand Canada’s national competence in neutron scattering. Without a national centre, Canadian people, projects and innovations will be lost to the US and elsewhere.

I can speak personally to the quality and value of the training opportunities afforded by access to the Chalk River facility. My first neutron beam experiment was carried out in 1995 at a small research reactor at Lucas Heights while I was on sabbatical in Australia. It was done with minimal support and absolutely no prior experience. On my return to Canada I continued my work, becoming an academic user at Chalk River and benefiting from the vastly superior capabilities of the NRU instruments. Under the watchful and patient eyes of their professional staff I have learned to use most of their beam lines to carry out a wide variety of neutron scattering projects, obtaining results that on several occasions were superior to those from flagship facilities like the ILL in France and NIST in the US. I have brought over 20 graduate students to the Chalk River facility to learn about and conduct neutron beam research. I use data obtained at Chalk River in my undergraduate classes to show that neutron scattering is a powerful research technique. I learned my craft at Chalk River, and I can pass it on because the facility is open and accessible to students and researchers seeking to add neutron beam techniques to their repertoire.

When NRU was being designed, the vision and insight of NRC’s scientific leaders ensured that this facility, funded from the centre of government, would remain world-class almost 50 years later. There was no piecemeal funding or paring down of the design. Upon its completion in 1957, Canada possessed the most powerful research tool of its type in the world. That facility opened up new fields of research, touching many areas of life in Canada spanning energy, materials, health and education.

The multipurpose design of NRU enabled five decades of materials research including the Nobel Prize-winning work of Dr Bert Brockhouse. NRU is the world’s largest producer of medical isotopes, for diagnosis and treatment of more than five million people worldwide each year. It provides the essential R&D platform for Canada’s nuclear power industry. We believe that NRC’s management of the neutron beam laboratory at NRU serves as an excellent model of a highly networked, client-focused national facility for science and industry. The CNF will build on the foundation of experience from NRU, which remains one of the great success stories in Canadian science.

Dr Dominic Ryan is a professor at McGill University and president of the Canadian Institute for Neutron Scattering.