A £5 million grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of Swindon, UK, will fund a cooperative effort to develop sources of protons, ions and gamma rays for medical, industrial and security applications.

Scientists from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, Queen’s University Belfast, Imperial College London, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, the University of Surrey in Guildford and the Universities of Birmingham, Paisley and Southampton will attempt to develop sources that produce high-flux rays of uniform quality through laser-irradiation of various materials. According to the researchers, the devices also should be adaptable for delivering electrons, neutrons and x-rays.

Applications for the technologies may exist in proton- and ion-beam cancer therapy as well as in research into the effects of exposure to cosmic rays. Flash radiography of ion beams could be used in engineering diagnostics, quality control of semiconductor electronics devices and fault analysis of rapidly moving components. Gamma ray-emitting devices could allow imaging of the contents of large packages and freight containers