In July, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany announced that funding to build the European Spallation Source (ESS) has been secured, and ESS received approval to start construction. The project is scheduled to break ground just north of Lund, Sweden, in the early autumn, meeting the planned construction phase of 2014–2019.

“Together we achieve more,” said Johanna Wanka, German Minister of Education and Research. “We are convinced that major social issues from biology and the life sciences to materials and energy research can be effectively explored in a transnational project with the most modern infrastructure.”

As a next-generation facility, ESS is expected to be significantly brighter and more intense than existing facilities. Spallation neutrons in the ESS will be generated by accelerating protons and directing them at a target made of tungsten, which will then release high-energy neutrons. Moderators adjacent to the tungsten target wheel will slow the neutrons down to the cold and thermal energies required for experiments. Moderation inevitably leads to loss of neutron intensity, and moderator design work includes optimizing geometries to minimize losses. By removing restraints on the initial optimization, the ESS Target division found that smaller moderator dimensions tend to increase neutron brightness.

The participating countries are Sweden, Denmark, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, although the amount of contributions is still being finalized.