The annual meeting of “Basic Research on the Free Electron Laser (FEL) and Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR)”, a project under the national program for key basic research and development

experts listen to the report on project progress

was held on December 8, 2011. The meeting aimed at reviewing the project progress and discussing the future developing plan. Members of the project expert group and officials from MOST and CAS attended.

As the basic research on cutting-edge science, this project mainly functioned as part of China’s participation in the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser (EXFEL) Facility and FAIR, and it contained seven sub-research projects, covering super-conducting cavity, superconducting magnet, undulator, cryostat, high-precision detector. At the meeting, seven sub-research teams reported separately on their project progress.　

Experts listened to the reports and concluded that great achievements had been made in the past year. The performance of large grain niobium, the special material dedicated for super-conducting cavity’s use, reached the internationally advanced level. The Muon Telescope Detector (MTD) and MRPC detector, jointly built by China and USA, played an important role in discovering the antihypertriton and the antimatter helium-4 nucleus. What's more exciting was that the cryostat and large grain niobium won the bid for the main suppliers of EXFEL Facility, which meant a promising future of the international cooperation. EXFEL Project also signed a cooperation framework agreement of five years with China in the field of undulator research.

MOST officials spoke highly of the project achievements and the international cooperation. Dr. Jiang Xiaoming, chief scientist of the project, expressed his gratitude for the support from MOST and the expert team, and introduced the following research arrangements in the next phase.