Photo: ISIS Neutron and Muon Source TS2 interior view. TS2 is part of a larger complex that includes a synchrotron, which accelerates protons to bombard a target, producing neutrons and muons.

Each year CPS members visit a different location of scientific interest on a summer visit. This year members visited the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, a world-leading facility for research in the physical and life sciences, based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) near Didcot in Oxfordshire.

The ISIS Neutron and Muon Source produces intense beams of neutrons and muons that enable materials to be studied at the atomic and molecular level, offering insights that other techniques cannot. The facility provides researchers with access to a suite of instruments, each optimised for studying different properties of matter. Research at ISIS spans a broad range of fields, from chemistry and catalysis to engineering components; cell membranes to battery materials; drug delivery mechanisms to microelectronics; and geological investigations to archaeological studies. ISIS serves a community of several thousand academic and industrial researchers from the UK and overseas.

Memebers also visited the Central Laser Facility (CLF), one of the world’s leading laser facilities, based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). The CLF’s wide ranging applications include experiments in physics, chemistry and biology, accelerating subatomic particles to high energies, probing chemical reactions on the shortest timescales and studying biochemical and biophysical process critical to life itself. 

RAL employs nearly 1,200 people and every year around 10,000 scientists and engineers use the laboratory’s facilities to advance their research.

As a benefit of membership of the CPS, members take part in free visits throughout the year to various science related locations across the UK. To join the Cambridge Philosophical Society visit our membership page here

Photo: Cambridge Philosophical Society Fellows inside the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) near Didcot in Oxfordshire.

Photo: Forensic investigation on ancient weaponry. The research used neutron tomography to see the internal structure of the objects and detect the use of glue and other modern tools and materials.

Photo: Aerial view of ISIS Neutron and Muon Source is based at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire