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Hermann
A. Grunder |
Argonne is a pioneer in science and technology |
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The scientific and technical achievements that have come out of Argonne National Laboratory testify to the effectiveness of a remarkable 58-year partnership between the University of Chicago and the U.S. government. Since Argonne’s founding in 1946, the University has managed and operated the laboratory under federal sponsorship. For the past decade, this sponsorship has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The quality of a research institution depends, first, on the talent and dedication of the individuals who choose to work there. A notable example is Argonne Distinguished Scientist Alexei Abrikosov, who shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics for his seminal theoretical work on superconductivity and superfluidity. Abrikosov is Argonne’s third nobel laureate in physics. In 1938, Enrico Fermi (later to be Argonne’s founding director) received the prize for demonstrating the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation and discovering nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons. In 1963, Maria Goeppert Mayer won the prize for discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure. Another critical factor for success in science and technology is multidisciplinary teamwork, both within and among institutions. The laboratory has long benefited both from team efforts within its disciplinary groups and from collaborations between its researchers and their colleagues outside Argonne. In the last several years, we have increased both the number of collaborations across Argonne’s internal organizational boundaries and the number of formal inter-institutional arrangements, such as joint appointments and research consortia with the University of Chicago. These interactions greatly enhance the value of Argonne’s core competencies. Argonne’s National User Facilities provide many examples of teamwork and partnerships. These centers afford visiting scientists the opportunity to perform forefront research with complex instruments that are not available at their home institutions. For example, at the Advanced Photon Source, industrial researchers have determined the structure of a major component of the SARS virus, and scientists from Chicago’s Field Museum have demonstrated a previously unknown respiration mechanism in insects. Using the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source, collaborating Argonne and Canadian scientists have discovered and characterized new states of ice that form under high pressure, and a collaboration between Argonne and the University of Chicago has elucidated the self-assembly of microscopic filaments that form characteristic tangles in the brain cells of Alzheimer patients. The success of recent measurements of the masses of exotic isotopes in the Argonne Tandem-Linac Accelerator System depended on international collaboration in instrument design and engineering as well as experimental analysis. The creation of research consortia is another important partnering mechanism. The recently launched Consortium for Nanoscience Research brings together the physical and intellectual resources of the University of Chicago and Argonne for multidisciplinary studies of nanoscale materials, whose physical dimensions are measured in billionths of a meter. Argonne is also participating with 14 universities in a Midwest Regional Center of Excellence for research on biodefense and emerging infectious diseases, and with universities and national laboratories to create new institutes focusing on accelerator physics and computation. The Computation Institute will focus on developing petascale computing to open new scientific frontiers by enabling a hundredfold or greater increase in computing speed relative to today’s fastest machines. In support of this goal, Argonne is planning a Theory and Computational Science Building to house advanced computing facilities and create new synergism by bringing theorists and computer scientists into daily contact. Argonne’s core competencies in engineering add value to many collaborative projects. Our Advanced Powertrain Research Facility, the only one of its kind at a national laboratory, serves industry and government through multifaceted performance testing and modeling of gas, diesel, electric, fuel-cell and hybrid vehicles and components. The DOE-industry FreedomCar consortium relies on Argonne’s expertise in transportation research ranging from battery and fuel-cell development to hydrogen fuel and hybrid vehicles. Recent collaborations with industry have produced new catalysts for cleaning up diesel engine exhaust and a long-life battery, 1/100th the size of a standard AA battery, for powering implantable medical devices. Through collaboration with researchers in clinical medicine, an ice-slurry technology originally developed by Argonne engineers to cool buildings is finding a surprising application in treating victims of cardiac arrest. At the nanoscale
in the interrelated fields of materials science,
chemistry and biology, Argonne scientists
and their collaborators
in academia and industry are making advances on
many fronts. Examples described in this publication include
ultrananocrystalline
diamond
coatings and their possible application
in an implantable artificial
retina.
In 2004,
Argonne
will begin
construction of the Center
for Nanoscale Materials, a new national
user facility jointly funded by DOE and the State
of Illinois for multidisciplinary research in nanoscience.
The Electron
Microscopy Center, another Argonne user facility
now
in the planning stage,
will enable studies of biological and other materials Argonne is an important player in the rapidly evolving areas of structural biology, functional genomics and bioinformatics. As developer and operator of the Structural Biology Center at the Advanced Photon Source and lead laboratory of the Midwest Center for Structural Genomics, we have been instrumental in speeding up the determination of protein structures. To facilitate the front end of this process—production of pure proteins for analysis—we are planning a complementary Protein Production and Characterization Facility. These programs will support the University of Chicago’s Regional Biocontainment Laboratory (RBL) being built on the Argonne campus. The RBL will be used to study infectious agents and will play an important role in national security by accommodating the development of defenses against microorganisms that could be used at terrorist weapons. RBL construction begins in 2004. Argonne physicists and their colleagues at universities and other national laboratories are studying fundamental questions about the structure and origin of atomic nuclei. To take this understanding to the next level, Argonne and its collaborators are developing plans for a Rare Isotope Accelerator or RIA, a proposed DOE national user facility that will produce uniquely intense beams of short-lived nuclei. Results obtained at RIA will help scientists find answers to important cosmology questions, ranging from the age of the universe to the mechanisms by which stars and galaxies form and evolve. Building RIA at Argonne would take advantage of not only existing infrastructure but also the laboratory’s core competency in managing and improving major facilities. Argonne’s original mission was to make nuclear energy a useful and safe source of electric power, and the laboratory continues to play a leading role in the development of advanced nuclear reactors and fuel systems that will minimize the generation of new radioactive waste, burn existing waste and reduce the threat of proliferation while operating in a "passively safe" mode. Argonne has joined with five other National Laboratories to create an action plan for reaching these goals. Argonne also works with international partners to enhance the safety of nuclear reactors around the world. Applications of our nuclear materials expertise extend beyond reactors. One example is the assembly and testing of devices that harness radioactive decay to power instruments on NASA spacecraft. Another is the Domestic Nuclear Event Attribution program, which is improving the nation’s ability to respond to the threat of a release of radioactive material in the form of a “dirty bomb.” This program is one of many that Argonne has undertaken in partnership with other laboratories and with first responders to enhance national security. Our plans for the future reflect our commitment to the team approach. Facilities that are currently in the planning stage will complement each other and will enhance the opportunities for research at Argonne by visitors representing many institutions and disciplines. Argonne’s ambitious agenda reflects not only confidence in our talented staff, but also the extent to which our collaborators and sponsors have supported our efforts to this point. We greatly appreciate their past contributions to our success, and we are keenly aware of the importance of continuing to work together to realize our shared scientific and technological goals. Hermann
A. Grunder
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