The UK's largest scientific facility built for over 30 years, the Diamond Light Source synchrotron, is now being commissioned and will come into full operation during 2007
Consultants from Observatory Sciences are now commissioning software systems at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron.
Observatory Sciences consultants have been involved in the Diamond Light Source project, located on the Harwell Chilton science campus in Oxfordshire, for a number of years.
As well as providing a series of on-site training courses for the Epics software toolkit, they were responsible for two Diamond software systems working with Micromech Systems of Braintree, Essex.
The first was the girder control software which detects and compensate for any movements in the storage ring's main support structure, The second was the software for the insertion devices which generate synchrotron light which is fed to the beamlines where the scientists perform their experiments.
Significant steps.
During May 2006, the first electrons orbited the 561 metre circumference storage ring and the first Synchrotron light was generated later the same month.
By September the system was operating at full power.
Seven beamlines are now being commissioned ready to go into operation in January 2007 and Observatory Sciences is helping to commission the software used to control the beamline equipment.
During the night of 12 October 2006, Observatory Sciences consultant Alan Greer was present when Diamond's Nanoscience beamline team got 'first beam'.
This is one of the most significant steps in the facility's commissioning process, and is seen as a key marker for the facility to be ready for the user community on time from early next year.
During a celebratory visit to Diamond, UK prime minister Tony Blair said: "This shows the importance we attach to science.
"Our future prosperity rests more than ever before on the hard work and genius of our scientists and how we harness their research to deliver improvements in all our lives.
"Diamond Light Source will help us in many fields, from developing new drugs to tackling climate change".
Most of the experiments at Diamond will use X-rays that are 100 billion times brighter than a conventional X-ray tube.
Diamond's beamlines will be employed in many different areas of science and the research carried out there will soon lead to breakthroughs in the fields of biotechnology, medicine, environment and materials science.
