GANIL has been funded since 1983 at Caen, France, as an institute for fundamental research to investigate and consolidate knowledge about the atomic nucleus. The laboratory is operated jointly by the National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (IN2P3) belonging to the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Direction des Sciences de la Matière (DSM) of the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA). The quality of beams delivered by its accelerators makes GANIL an outstanding facility used also by other disciplines, via laboratories associated with Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche Ions-Lasers (CIRIL) and the École Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Caen (ENSICAEN), gathered in an interdisciplinary research hub. The range of areas explored with GANIL beams extends from Astrophysics to Radiobiology, including Material Science (material ageing, hardness of electronic components carried into space and of reactor vessels, etc...).
With GANIL and its industrial applications department, several specialised companies have been formed in areas ranging from the production of microporous membranes (filters) to the development of new electronic modules and ion sources. The accelerator complex of GANIL comprises Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion sources and five cyclotrons: two injectors and two sectors separated cyclotrons put in a cascade delivering stable beams and CIME large-acceptance cyclotron for the acceleration of radioactive ion beams at the SPIRAL facility operating since 2001. Up to 3 simultaneous beams in the energy range from 1 to 100 MeV/nucleon are available. The accelerators provide for users up to 10000 hours per year of heavy-ions beams.
GANIL pursues high-quality, front-line scientific research and actively participates in education and instruction of (graduate) students and postdocs (about 100 each year) in an international environment. It has 245 full-time employees. About 700 researchers from 30 different countries visit GANIL each year to perform experiments.
Relevant experience
GANIL has experience in transnational access to its facilities in the FP3-FP7-EC framework programmes and in coordination of European contracts (EURISOL Design Study, SPIRAL2 Preparatory Phase). GANIL has several expert groups and services in charge of advanced R&D in Basic and Applied Nuclear, Atomic and Solid-state Physics. The staff at GANIL has successful experience in running complex stable- and radioactive-ion accelerator facilities, management of large collaborations and is world expert in techniques relating to ECR ion-source technology, advanced electromagnetic spectrometers, complex particle detectors, electronics and data acquisition systems.
The Neutrons For Science facility is an experimental area of the SPIRAL-2 facility under construction on the site of GANIL. This facility will open GANIL to new research domain, in particular the study of neutron induced reactions like fission, (n,xn) or (n,lcp).