Science and Technology Facilities CouncilScience and Technology Facilities CouncilScience and Technology Facilities CouncilScience and Technology Facilities Council

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STFC funds, designs, builds and operates world-class

large scale science infrastructure:

•unique scientific insight

•innovative technology

…to government, academic and industry customers

RCUK Executive Group

STFC is an independent, non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Research Council Funding Mechanism

• Provide large-scale

science facilities and

programmes for the UK

• A centre of ‘science-

technology’ expertise

• Economic Impact

Chilbolton ObservatoryStockbridge, Hampshire

Daresbury LaboratoryDaresbury Science and Innovation CampusWarrington, Cheshire

Rutherford Appleton LaboratoryHarwell Science and Innovation CampusDidcot, Oxfordshire

Polaris HouseSwindon, Wiltshire

Royal Observatory EdinburghEdinburgh, Scotland

Boulby Underground LaboratorySaltburn-by-the-Sea, Cleveland

Westcott National Propulsion Test

Facility

STFC Facilities –driving scientific research

Neutron SourcesProviding powerful insights into key areas of energy, biomedical research, climate, environment and security

High Power LasersProviding applications on bioscience and nanotechnology and demonstrating laser driven fusion as a future source of sustainable, clean energy

Light SourcesProviding new breakthroughs in medicine, environmental and materials science, engineering, electronics and cultural heritage

STFC’s Asset BaseKnowledge

SkillsTechnologyInspiration

Innovation Resilient Economy

Delivering Economic Growth through Innovation

We work with international partners

o CERN

o European Southern Observatory

o European Space Agency

o European Synchrotron Radiation Facility

o Institute Laue-Langevin

o Gemini Observatory

World’s most productive sources of pulsed neutrons

World-leading intense lasers

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

Central Laser Facility

Ultrafast

vibrational

spectroscopy

ARTEMISASTRA GEMINI VULCAN ULTRA OCTOPUS

Imaging, laser

tweezers and

microscopy

Laser applications in the physical and life

sciences (materials, chemistry, biology)

fs and as

ultrafast

spectroscopy

high harmonic

generation

IR to soft x-ray

High-power, ultra-intense lasers for

extreme conditions science & applications

Ultra high-power

laser

Up to 1 PW peak

power

Focused intensity

> 1021 Wcm-2

High power,

ultra-short

pulse dual

beams of 15 J,

30 fs pulses

Pulse every 20s

Octopus for Molecular & Cellular Imaging

A suite of advanced optical imaging stations for the life sciences

Imaging of biological systems

on the nanoscale

Techniques: Super-resolution (STED, PALM/STORM, SIM); single and multiphoton

confocal microscopy with fluorescence lifetime imaging; single molecule tracking and

localisation techniques for characterisation of molecular interactions on the nanoscale.

Plant membrane proteins anchored at the plasma

membrane(Credit: Dr John Runions,

Oxford Brookes University)

Using computation to understand materials and structures at many length scales

Science and Engineering with Supercomputing

Hartree Centre

•Co-laboratory with IBM

•Not just petaflops, need to parallelise

code for the application….

� atomic level systems

� computer aided formulation

� virtual engineering

ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

• Produces Neutrons

• Nuclear level interaction

• Non-destructive

• Investigation of:

– Structure

– Atomic and Molecular Interactions

– Particularly useful for hydrogenated

systems

Neutrons are neutral

• Are highly penetrating

• Can be used as non-destructive probes,

• Can be used to study samples in extreme environments

Computational Sciences

• High Performance Computing

• Computational science and

engineering

• Data storage, handling, hosting,

security

• Visualisation and Analysis

• Big Data

• Cognitive Computing

• IoT

• Energy Efficient Computing

RAL SpaceSpace Science and Technology

• Earth Observation – Observation of land, sea and air.

– Space instruments provide continuous, global measurements for many years at a time, allowing events like El Nino to be studied

• The Sun– Use observations of the solar atmosphere to

determine its plasma characteristics.

• Planetary Science– Strong instrument programme, including missions

to all the inner solar system planets, as well as comets and the Saturnian system

• Facilities– Space manages and provides

help for many space projects involving universities and industry

• Data Management– Processing, analysis and

archiving of science data

Technology Department

• Detector Systems

• Engineering Technology Centre

• Advanced Materials and Composites

• Cryogenics and Magnetics

Detector Systems

– Design of sensors and

electronics

– Harsh environments

– Radiation hard sensors

– Examples

• Lassena: Radiation hard

wafer-scale x-ray sensor

for medical imaging

• Kirana: Ultra-high speed,

0.7Mp 5m f/s

• PimMS: Event based time-

stamping pixel sensor

• Puroindoline-a: A plant seed defence protein found in wheat

• Broad spectrum of antifungal and antibacterial properties

• Potential applications: Novel antibiotics, targeted drug delivery systems, etc.

Found that:• Puroindoline-a forms micelles in aqueous solution (only one other protein is

known to do this) • Highly elongated rather than spherical• The tryptophan-rich part is thought to be responsible for the structure and for

forming the water-insoluble interior of the micelle

• Used a combination of small angle neutron scattering (SANS), dynamic light scattering and size-exclusion chromatography

Neutrons could reveal how pesticides protect crops

Scientists have created a model of a leaf’s waxy surface, similar to those found in wheat crops and are now studying the interaction of surfactants with the model at ISIS.

Surfactants are a key component in pesticides and enter the plant through the leaf surface to take effect. By understanding on a molecular level how surfactants get through the leaf’s waxy surface pesticide formulations could be optimised to further increase crop yields.

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• Developing an autonomous robot to conduct chemical soil tests and provide farmers with a greater understanding of soil quality.

• Remotely controlled arm to collect samples and crops

• A Laser Induced Breakdown Spectrometer to detects soil composition.

• A camera to create a 3D map of the farm land

Investigation of vulnerability of plants to pathogen attacks

This restricts their ability to move around and fight invading pathogens and so increases the plant’s vulnerability.

The information could hold the key to making crops more disease-resistant

Credit: Prof. Chris Hawes

By enabling the movement of individual molecules in living plant cells to be observed in real time it was possible to reveal that the cell wall allowed proteins to stabilise in the plasma membrane.

STFC interactions with Turkey

• Tubitak Space Technologies Research

Institute, Tubitak Marmara Research

Centre, Metutech, TARLA and the Ministry

of Development

• Hosted visit by researchers and

government officials

Look forward to supporting further Turkey-

UK collaborations through use of STFC

facilities

Thank You

Izhar Ul-Haq

Business Development Manager

Izhar.ul-haq@stfc.ac.uk

Tel: 01235 567203