At Fermilab’s Illinois Accelerator Research Center, or IARC, scientists and engineers are taking advantage of the laboratory’s long history of designing, developing, building and testing accelerators and accelerator components for science research.
Together with partners in industry and academia at other laboratories and with all levels of government, IARC researchers aim to advance accelerator technologies developed at Fermilab and use them in ways that benefit society.
Engineers at IARC are designing a superconducting radio-frequency accelerator to generate high-energy electron beams over short distances in a compact, portable accelerator comparable in size to a small car. Electron beams offer a safe alternative to some traditional technologies and substances used across industries. IARC researchers anticipate that this high-energy, compact electron accelerator will be a boon for many types of industrial applications, including sterilizing medical equipment and food packaging, removing forever chemicals from the environment and treating road pavement to make it more durable.
Fermilab has world-class facilities and leading experts in several capabilities that relate to processing, testing and assembling conventional and superconducting magnets, SRF cavity assembly, superconducting cabling manufacturing and testing, and particle detector manufacturing and development. IARC partners can access certain of these advanced Fermilab facilities, including various particle beams, and use high-performance computing resources.
