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The University of Huddersfield leads the UK in the development and advocacy of the thorium nuclear fuel cycle as an alternative to the uranium/plutonium cycle. We have set the design parameters for feasible thorium fuelled accelerator driven subcritical reactor assemblies for power generation and waste management and for fertile to fissile conversion of thorium [A]. Our high media profile [G,H] and extensive interactions with the public [I] and policy makers both in the UK and US [B,C,E,F] has led to growing acceptance of thorium as a realistic, safer, cleaner and proliferation resistant alternative fuel for nuclear fission reactors. Consequently our research is now influencing nuclear policy both at home and overseas [D,F].
This outreach event presents the principles and applications of particle accelerators. It has resulted in increased interest in and knowledge of particle accelerators by over 7,700 schoolchildren; greater knowledge and ability of schoolteachers to incorporate content, demonstrations and experiments related to accelerator science into their teaching; and wider awareness in the general public of many kinds of particle accelerators and their uses (e.g. in medicine and industry). The beneficiaries extend beyond audiences of shows presented by the University of Oxford through delivery by other institutions in the UK and Germany, and downloads of online material.
This case study describes the invention, development and subsequent commercial application of the floating low-energy ion gun (FLIG), a key enabling technology for high-resolution depth profiling, in particular of semiconductor devices. Following its invention at the University of Warwick, the FLIG was commercialised and now plays an important role in the semiconductor industry as a key analytical instrument. Intel and its competitors have used the FLIG in developing specific technologies, such as the PentiumTM, XeonfTM and CoreTM i7 processors. Its impact extends beyond the electronics industry to consumers worldwide since the FLIG has played a key role in the development of multicore processors for personal computers, intense low-energy lighting for automotive and civil engineering, mobile telecommunications technology, and many other areas of advanced electronic, and other material, technologies. This invention has also led directly to an ISO standard for depth resolution.
XMaS is a dedicated materials science beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). It develops and disseminates novel instrumentation and sample environments that allow new experiments which support emerging technologies. By commercialising the intellectual property through licenses to companies economic impact is derived directly. Further economic impact is facilitated through knowledge transfer by trained people and expertise in new processes, which enhances the capability, capacity and efficiency of other central facilities. Public interest and awareness are engendered through individual research projects being highlighted in the media and through people's skills and experience being utilised in a broad range of sectors.
This case is primarily based on the economic benefit derived from commercialisation of intellectual property arising from our research programme in materials at the XMaS beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility at Grenoble. The company Huber Diffraktiontechnik GmbH and Co. KG have had direct commercial benefit from exploitation of instrumentation we have developed, in collaboration with Warwick University, to address the specific research challenges described below. A second, indirect, impact of XMaS is knowledge transfer through the career progression of trained specialists in positions at other large scale science facilities and in the private sector.
Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is known from past clinical studies to have realistic potential to treat malignant tumours that gain only marginal benefit from other treatment approaches. In the "West", high grade gliomas account for around 1% of cancer diagnoses, so 2000-2500 per year in the UK. The potential of this treatment will be even higher if it is extended to other tumours (e.g. in head and neck and lung). One of the factors limiting the take-up of BNCT had been a presumption that a suitable incident neutron beam could only be deployed at nuclear research reactors, which brings obvious cost and practical limitations. The work of the Birmingham group has been crucial in demonstrating that an alternative approach using an accelerator could be applied in a hospital-setting.
This approach is now being used for the first time by clinicians to implement treatment with patients. These clinical trials began in Kyoto in October 2012 and clinicians in Japan have acknowledged the research published by the Birmingham team as significant in the crucial step of designing hospital-based systems. This allowed the development of BNCT treatment facilities which would not otherwise have been viable. The three accelerator based facilities established in Japan are estimated to have cost £19M apiece with two more being developed, bringing additional commercial benefits to the companies that manufacture them.
The microscopy facilities in the Biomedical Sciences Research Institute of the University of Ulster have been vastly improved through our collaboration with FEI, the largest European EM manufacturer, which has led them to manufacture a cryostage dual-beam instrument of our design with unique capabilities, and to set up their European reference laboratory here. This has generated two further sets of impacts: collaboration and consultancy with various firms wishing to use our advanced imaging facilities, and advice to national, EU and global bodies on the novel cytotoxic hazards of nanoparticles, a major but optically invisible by-product of modern industry, and consequent public health risks.