Research selections 2009

Abstract

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) is the home of Australia’s nuclear science expertise. This unique expertise is applied to radiopharmaceutical production and research, climate change research, water resource management, materials engineering, neutron scattering and a range of other scientific research disciplines. ANSTO is a Federal Government agency and operates Australia’s only nuclear reactor OPAL – used for research and isotope production. ANSTO applies nuclear science in a wide range of areas for the benefit of all Australians. Accelerators are used to analyse materials – often using extremely small samples – to determine their elemental composition and age. ANSTO currently has two accelerators, ANTARES and STAR, both of which are used in ion beam analysis and accelerator mass spectrometry. Over the next four years, ANSTO will be establishing a Centre for Accelerator Science including adding two new accelerators, putting ANSTO at the forefront of this field worldwide. The new accelerators are a low energy multi-isotope accelerator mass spectrometer and a new medium-energy tandem accelerator. ANSTO has also become a partner in a national accelerator collaboration – Australian Collaboration for Accelerator Science (ACAS) – aimed at maintaining state-of-the-art accelerator-based facilities and a world-class pool of accelerator scientists in Australia.