The European Spallation Source (ESS) is the keystone of Europe’s materials research facilities. Spain has presented a very strong candidature to build the ESS in Bilbao in northern Spain.

The ESS-Bilbao consortium has been created to represent the Basque and central governments to develop the financial, technical, business-related and urban development aspects of the Spanish bid.

The ESS-Bilbao Consortium team has designed a comprehensive, international and collaborative R&D program which is already addressing some of the critical design challenges of ESS and providing a basis for research projects across Europe.

The three key components of this R&D programme are:

1. A network of contributors with a high level of training oriented towards major research infrastructures projects.
2. Clearly defined lines of research that capitalise the contributors’ experience, and focused on state-of-the-art design for the ESS.
   
3. Signing international cooperation agreements with the world’s top research centres and facilities to facilitate an interchange of knowledge with the aim of becoming leaders in the field. 

The ESS-Bilbao has set in motion a program of international cooperation in R&D along the following lines: 

• The conceptual design of the accelerator in parametric from
• The construction of a Test Stand for accelerating structures
• The adaptation and prototyping of superconducting cavities
• Deliver of key components for accelerating structures and RF power distribution to international research facilities
• Liquid mercury target and rotating solid target developments
• Development of neutron instrumentation

To achieve these goals the ESS-Bilbao strategy has been based on international cooperation. ESS-Bilbao has signed or is in the process of signing technological cooperation agreements with the following institutes:

• ISIS – Oxford, United Kingdom
• SNS -  Spallation Neutron Source, Knoxville, USA
• CERN, Genève, Switzerland
• IPN –Institut de Physique Nucléaire, France
• INFN – Instituto Nazionale de Fisica Nucleare, Italy
• CEA/CNRS - France
• ILL – High Flux Reactor Source, Grenoble, France
• FZJ – Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
• PSI – Paul Scherrer Insititut, Switzerland

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Within this framework, ESS-Bilbao has developed several documents being presented in different attended conferences, seminars, workshops among other events all around the world:

Particle Accelerator Conference May 2009, Vancouver, Canada -PAC 09-

Baseline Design for the ESS-Bilbao Superconducting Proton Accelerator |pdf (6.17MB)|Bermejo, J., Lucas, J. Bustinduy, I., |poster pdf (1.29MB)|

2nd SPL Collaboration Meetings CERN May, 2009

International Conference on Neutron Scattering -ICNS09-, May 2009, Knoxville, USA

ESS-Bilbao R&D programme towards a 5MW target: current challenges and future prospects jpg (1.5MB)
ESS-Bilbao, a commitment with the future pdf (456KB)

Eurisol Working Days –April 2009, Pisa, Italy

ESS–Bilbao: Target jpg (1.5MB)

ESS-Bilbao Initiative Workshop (Multi MW Spallation Neutron Sources: Current Challenges and Future Prospects), March 2009, Bilbao

The ESS-Bilbao Machine Concept
Bermejo, J., Lucas, J., Bustinduy I.

Accelerating Spoke Cavities for the ESS-Bilbao linac
Bustinduy I., Lucas, J., Jeon D., Bermejo, J.,  

ETORFETS: A Front End Test Stand for ESS-Bilbao pdf
Uriarte, L., Enparantza, R., Alonso, J., Ariz, I., Egiraun, M., Bermejo, J., Etxebarria, V., Lucas, J., et al.

ITUR: A Facility for Testing and Optimising Ion Sources pdf
Enparantza, R., Uriarte, L., Alonso, J., Ariz, I., Egiraun, M., Bermejo, J., Etxebarria, V., Lucas, J., et al.

H- Ion source and LEBT design with nIGUN
Becker R., Bustinduy I.

1st SPL Collaboration Meetings with CERN, December, 2008

SPIRAL2 Week, January 2009 Caen – France.

ESS-Bilbao, a New Perspective pdf

Congress: NIBS (1st International Conference on Negative Ions, Beams and Sources), September 2008, Aix-en-Provence, France

A Test Stand for Ion Sources of Ultimate Reliability
Enparantza, R., Uriarte, L., Bermejo, J., et al.

Congress: 4th Meeting SETN (Sdad. Española de Técnicas Neutrónicas), September 2008, Girona

Capacidades tecnológicas en torno a ESS-Bilbao
Uriarte, L.

42nd ICFA Advanced Beam Dynamics 

Workshop on High-Intensity, High-Brightness Hadron Beams HB2008, Agost 2008, Nashville, TN, USA

A Superconducting Proton Linac for the ESS-Bilbao Accelerator pdf
Bustinduy I., Bermejo J., Uriarte L.,  Lucas J., et al.

EPAC, June 2008, Genova, Italia

Baseline desing of the ESS-Bilbao linac pdf
Enparantza, R., Uriarte, L., Bermejo, J., Lucas, J.

ESS is considered a unique facility of its type, due to its different design and construction features as well as for its use and/or applications. The ESS provides services to the international community of scientists and technologists, being considered an essential tool for the development of a competitive and high quality scientific and technological research.

This scientific structure produces neutrons that penetrate matter providing accurate information about its atomic structure. Neutron spallation is a technique used by researchers from various scientific disciplines, such as molecular biology, and material or medical physics. Scientific applications derived from experiments with neutrons are numerous, as well as industrial applications in sectors such as the pharmaceutical, automotive, aeronautical and electronic, among others.

Operation

A source produces hydrogen ions which are guided through a linear accelerator towards a material with a heavy nucleus, the spallation target, which emits neutrons due to the impact. The emitted neutrons are guided to different instrumental stations where experiments on the atomic structure of the material are performed.