STFC Technology Department

This summer, our Project Engineering Group travelled to CERN to deliver and install interlinks for the ATLAS Phase II upgrades. The ATLAS detector is undergoing major upgrades to enable it to handle the increased interactions produced by the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider Project. A key feature of this upgrade is the new Inner Tracking Detector (ITK), designed to enhance tracking performance while managing increased data rates and radiation levels. Both the STFC Technology Department and the STFC Particle Physics Department are contributing to the design, construction and testing of the ITk project. This work includes installing silicon strip modules mounted on staves into the strip barrel and attaching pixel modules to the pixel endcaps. The CERN and Berkeley Lab teams recently reached a major milestone with ATLAS ITk's first hardware installation, involving fitting the detector's strip cylinder into the outer support cylinder. Following this achievement, Liam Cooper, one of our mechanical project engineers, travelled to CERN to install a series of interlinks into the detector. This carbon fibre support structure interfaces with the flanges of the strip barrels and provides the necessary constraints to keep them round and coaxially aligned. In total, we will fit 392 interlinks! Our team will return to CERN soon to commission insertion tooling for the detector and deliver the first of the service modules. In the spring of 2025, the final elements of ITk will be installed, a significant task involving teams from across our department and other facilities at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. 📸 The photo shows Liam in CERN's SR1 building with the first parts of the inner tracker and team members from CERN and LBNL. #UKRI #STFC #Technology #TD #ATLAS #ParticlePhysics #ProjectEngineering #Teamwork #BehindtheScenes STFC

The National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) is officially open at Harwell Campus! Quantum computers are set to exponentially increase the current limits of computing power, with potential applications in drug discovery, power grid management, fraud detection and more. The NQCC will ensure that the UK remains internationally competitive in this critical technology, A key focus will be identifying and tackling barriers to the scaling up of quantum computer processors, and supporting the development of prototype quantum computers. NQCC is supported through an initial £93 million UKRI investment, delivered through EPSRC and STFC, and has attracted a further £50 million in UK Research and Innovation funding. Lord Vallance, Minister of Science, Research and Innovation, opened NQCC at a ceremony on Friday 25 October. He said: "The National Quantum Computing Centre marks a vital step forward in the UK’s efforts to advance quantum technologies. By making its facilities available to users from across industry and academia, and with its focus on making quantum computers practically useable at scale, this Centre will help them solve some of the biggest challenges we face, whether it’s delivering advances in healthcare, enhancing energy efficiency, tackling climate change, or inventing new materials. The innovations that will emerge from the work the NQCC will do will ultimately improve lives across the country and ensure the UK seizes the economic benefits of its leadership in quantum technologies." Find out more on the UKRI website. #QuantumComputing

Tomorrow, our Business Development Manager, Alexandra B., will represent us at the Energy Innovation Summit 2024. From STFC's stand (E5), Alexandra is looking forward to: 🔋Sharing the work of our Energy Research Unit (ERU). 💼Meeting with businesses to discuss their technology challenges. 🤝Seeking collaborators for future net-zero projects. One of the highlights of our energy showcase is ASPIRE, a major project led by the ERU to design and build a 150kW green ammonia demonstrator plant. We will also bring along our Green Ammonia Model, a representation of a 5GWh green ammonia plant that illustrates our vision of green ammonia as a future zero-carbon fuel. Interested in exploring our business development opportunities? Connect with Alexandra on LinkedIn or stop by STFC's stand for a chat. Learn more about ASPIRE by reading our latest project update: https://lnkd.in/ePa2pR-4 📸 A photo of our Green Ammonia Model at the last #EnergySummit. #UKRI #STFC #Technology #TD #EnergyInnovation #GreenAmmonia #TechforGood #BusinessDevelopment

A prototype accelerator cavity being used to test equipment ahead of a major project at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory has recorded results so good that it’s had the ultimate seal of approval – reclassification!  

From a sunny yellow C100 CMOS image sensor to a verdant green FPGA development board, our projects are anything but dull. 🌈 Today we are celebrating #NationalColourDay with some colourful images taken by Technology staff. A particular favourite of ours are the swirling rainbow colours created by a lap-shear test of two pieces of glued acrylic sheet - provided by our amazing Composites and Materials Testing team. When pulled in opposite directions, the polarised light paints a picture of the stresses within the material. How cool is that! What colourful creations are brightening up your workplace? #UKRI #STFC #Technology #TD STFC

Earlier this month, STFC’s next-generation spectroscopic X-ray imaging camera HEXITEC-MHz was installed on the I13-1 beamline at Diamond Light Source for its first scientific experiment. Funded and developed by our department with support from the BBSRC’s Basic Technology Grant (BB/X004791/1), the HEXITEC-MHz system runs at 1 million frames per second and can detect the position and energy of each X-ray hitting the detector. In its inaugural experiment, Technology staff joined collaborators from Diamond Light Source, University College London, and the University of Ghent to demonstrate the feasibility of a novel hyperspectral X-ray ptychography technique. Ptychography uses multiple X-ray images which, when combined, create a high-resolution picture of a tiny object, providing details that are normally too small to be seen with traditional microscopes. This technique has been successfully applied in a range of different research fields, from energy to electronics and from magnetism to life science. Conventional X-ray ptychography uses X-rays with a single unique energy. However, with HEXITEC-MHz, it is possible to use X-ray beams containing multiple different energies. Known as hyperspectral X-ray ptychography, this technique reduces the amount of time taken for each scan and can uniquely identify individual elements in a sample without the need to repeat measurements many times. Over a week of beamtime, the experiment team evaluated the performance of the HEXITEC-MHz system and used the novel technique to image some interesting items, including materials from catalytic converters and archaeological samples. The HEXITEC-MHz team and their collaborators look forward to sharing the results of the experiment soon! 📸 The photos show members of the STFC HEXITEC-MHz team and the experiment installed at the DLS beamline. #UKRI #STFC #Technology #TD #HEXITECMHz #Ptychography #Synchrotron

There are only 2 days left to apply for our early careers #vacancies! ⌛Don't miss your opportunity to start your career with STFC in 2025. 👇 Applications to our graduate and industrial placement roles will close on the 20th of October. This includes: Cryogenic Engineer Industrial Placement Detector Developer Industrial Placement Graduate Control Systems Engineer Graduate Energy Data Steward Graduate Product Assurance Specialist Graduate Research Software Engineer Integrated Circuit and Microelectronic System Graduate Engineers IT Support Analyst Industrial Placement Mechanical Engineer Industrial Placement Microelectronics Design Methodology Engineers Industrial Placement Check out job links in the comments below. ⬇️ To view all vacancies and become a key part of world-leading national and international research, visit STFC's Careers Portal: https://lnkd.in/eTw78SCA. And to learn more about the opportunities available at Technology, visit our website: technology.stfc.ac.uk. #UKRI #STFC #Technology #TD #Career #Jobs #Hiring

A very special delivery to Daresbury Laboratory marks the next chapter in the high luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.  

Congratulations to UKERC on their programme funding! We are also pleased to share that (as a part of this award) we have received £700K to fund the continued development of the Energy Data Centre. The EDC provides academics working in energy research with access to an extensive catalogue of information relating to energy projects, publications and data sets. Funding awarded by EPSRC and ESRC will enable us to continue this pivotal support and improve access to grey literature produced by the UK's energy R&D community. Visit our website for full details: https://lnkd.in/ex-Hf6sA #UKRI #STFC #Technology #TD #EnergyResearch #EnergyData

Some amazing shots of the aurora over UK ATC, Higgs Centre for Innovation and Royal Observatory Edinburgh last week! ( 📸 taken by Instrument Scientist William Taylor). #aurora #astronomy #science #NorthernLights