ESS Construction site

Danish neutron research instrument receives DKK 100 million grant

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The large new pan-European neutron research facility European Spallation Source (ESS) has just granted DKK 100 million (EUR 13,5 million) in funding to the BIFROST instrument for whose development DTU is the leading Danish partner.

ESS will become world's most powerful and most advanced neutron source, and is currently being built in Lund, Sweden. When ESS opens its doors to external users in 2023, one of the first instruments to be made available is developed and built by a group of European universities and research laboratories headed by DTU.

Following negotiations between ESS and the partners involved, the instrument—known as BIFROST—has been granted a construction budget of approx. DKK 100 million.

"With the budget in place, we can now embark on the sizeable practical task of creating a detailed design and planning the design process. We will be busy for the next six years, but we look forward to building a world-class neutron instrument", says researcher Rasmus Toft-Petersen, who is lead instrument responsible for BIFROST.

About ESS
European Spallation Source (ESS) is a new pan-European neutron research facility. The facility is under construction in Lund and has a total construction budget of EUR 1.843 billion. Denmark contributes around 12.5 per cent of this amount, making ESS the largest Danish research project since the time of Tycho Brahe.

The actual experiments on the neutron source will be performed at the facility in Lund, while the associated data processing will take place at the ESS Data Management and Software Centre (ESS DMSC) in Copenhagen.

Neutron radiation is used to study the internal structure and dynamics of all kinds of materials. Read more at www.dtu.dk/ess

About BIFROST
BIFROST is a so-called neutron spectrometer, an instrument which is particularly suitable for studying dynamics in solids (for example crystal lattice oscillations and magnetic oscillations) on an atomic scale. The focus of the instrument is magnetism in materials relevant to the energy and IT sectors, for example high-temperature superconductors as well as materials which can be used for data storage and manipulation in future.

BIFROST must be ready for the first tests in 2022 and will be one of the first instruments to be included in ESS's user programme as of 2023.