Date:05/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/05/stories/2008030556492200.htm

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A physics record is broken

OAK RIDGE: In an accomplishment that promises to lead to new drugs, energy advances and other benefits, Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has become the world’s most powerful source of pulsed neutrons.

The $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source’s linear accelerator produces a proton beam that strikes a mercury target and creates a stream of subatomic neutrons that are used to study the structure and dynamics of materials.

The beam reached 310 kilowatts, in late January, nearly doubling the 163-kilowatt record held by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, England. Oak Ridge now holds the Guinness World Record.

“This is basically confirming what we did in January,” a lab spokesman Bill Cabage said. “We confirmed the record.” — AP