MAHE, Manipal launches country's first University based table top accelerator

MANIPAL: The Manipal Academy of Higher Education launched country's first and an indigenously designed and fabricated table top accelerator (TTA).

It was launched at Manipal Centre for Natural Sciences, MAHE, Manipal. Designed by IUAC, New Delhi, this is considered as the first deemed university based table-top accelerator to become functional within the country.

This project was undertaken by the Nuclear Physics Group at Manipal Center for Nuclear Sciences, in technical co-operation with IUAC. The Manipal team was led by Prasanta Kumar Rath assisted by design engineer Pratyusha Dittakavi in co-operation with Safvan and Rajkumar of IUAC, New Delhi.

The Nuclear Physics group of the centre currently specialises in heavy element synthesis and neutron physics. Dr H Vinod Bhat, vice chancellor welcoming the new development and said "with this new addition to our experimental facilities at MCNS, we look forward to expanding our work into the field of accelerator science as well as using this as a tool for exploring new directions in research and development across a range of fields relevant to the future. We would of course like to build on these skills, and in time, we expect that an upgraded and revised version of this accelerator will be available at Manipal for researchers at MAHE and across the country".

Mohini Gupta, Director, MCNS thanked Kanjilal, Director, IUAC for the technical co-operation and said that the table top machine provided a good introduction to accelerators and associated instrumentation for students who would now have access to a unique and versatile tool for scientific study. Rath indicated that numerous facility tests are underway, after which the accelerator is expected to be commissioned. He added that many experiments are in the planning stage and post-commissioning, the Manipal tabletop accelerator will be used for both teaching and research.