A new research reactor to be used as neutron source will start operation from next year, Chinese scientists have told a workshop in Beijing.

The China Advanced Research Reactor (CARR) was still being established and would be put into use in the second half of 2007, said Zhao Zhixiang, president of the China Institute of Atomic Energy, at the US-China Workshop Series on Neutron Scattering Science and Technology.

Neutron scattering would help scientific research by probing the microstructures of matter and help the advance of industrial technologies.

It is used in fields, like the study of mineralization and decomposition of bones to help develop medicine. Isotopes created by neutrons help treat one third of hospital inpatients every year. Neutron scattering is used in physics, chemistry, life sciences and materials science, and in the making of discs, credit cards, tapes, windscreens and geological maps.

The workshop's U.S. co-chair, senior physicist Chun-Keung Loong, hoped China could make better use of neutron scattering and the CARR.

Chinese researchers had developed neutron scattering with a heavy-water research reactor since the 1960s. In the 1990s, they started establishing the CARR at the power of 60 megawatts.

In recent years, neutron scattering has drawn more attention from the United States, Japan and Germany, who have raised investment in developing the technology.

Experts from China, Chinese Taiwan, the U.S., Republic of Korea, Germany, France and Japan gathered in Beijing from Nov. 12 to 15 to discuss China and U.S. neutron source projects and the impact of neutron scattering on research and development communities.

Source:Xinhua