Made up of more than 1,100 research units throughout France, the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) is the largest fundamental research organization in Europe. A government-funded laboratory under the administrative authority of the French Ministry in charge of research, the center’s missions, as defined by governmental decree, are to:
- Evaluate and carry out research capable of advancing knowledge and bringing social, cultural and economic benefits to society
- Contribute to the application and promotion of research results
- Develop scientific information
- Support research training
- Participate in the analysis of the national and international situation of science and its perspectives for evolution in view of contributing to the development of the national research policy
The CNRS laboratory, ”Centre de recherche sur les Ions, les MAtériaux et la Photonique” (CIMAP), contributes to RaDIATE’s research with experiments involving low-energy ion irradiation. This approach is an effective and fast way to produce radiation damage in material without activating the specimens. Low-energy heavy ion beams provide a much higher damage rate than high-energy proton beams, allowing shorter irradiation time with higher doses – up to few displacement per atom (DPA is a unit to estimate equivalent damage in material) in few days.
The French GANIL facility is a heavy ion beam facility. Since 1982, the CIRIL platform and CIMAP laboratory lead the interdisciplinary researches at the GANIL facility. CIRIL platform supports the developments of experiments outside of those of nuclear physics, in ion-matter interactions, materials science, nanostructuration by ion beam, atomic physics or even radiobiology. For this purpose, the CIRIL welcomes external users and develops equipment adapted to the proposed experiments (beam lines, irradiation chambers, on-line measurements…). At the GANIL facility four beamlines with energies from eV up to GeV are dedicated to interdisciplinary physics: ARIBE, IRRSUD, ME and HE-D1, ions accelerated are in mass from carbon to uranium. Broad range of experimental conditions and in-situ devices are available for the users. (More details)
The IRRSUD facility is a unique facility that provides ions from carbon to Uranium at energy from 0.25 to 1 MeV/A with a continuous measurement of the ion flux during the irradiation. This wide range of ions and energy allow controlling the irradiation parameters (damage dose, temperature, fluence). Access to beamtime is available to the communities through call for proposals (https://cimap.ensicaen.fr/spip.php?article431).