Interserve has been chosen to begin work on an £8 million advanced experimental station and electron microscopy facility at Diamond Light Source on the Harwell Oxford Campus in Oxfordshire.

Diamond Light Source, the UK's national synchrotron science facility accelerates electrons to produce bright X-ray light. This light is then fed to 24 experimental stations known as ‘beamlines’ where it is used by scientists to conduct cutting-edge research into numerous areas as diverse as fossils and viruses.

The new facility will use Diamond's intense X-ray light to power an X-ray nanoprobe: a powerful microscope used to examine materials as small as one billionth of a metre. It will also house a new national facility for high resolution electron microscopy, providing tools to examine materials with ultra high precision, as well as cryo-electron microscopes, which will allow users to see biological samples in atomic detail.

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The new experimental facilities are designed to complement the existing facilities at Diamond, which currently attract scientists from all over the world, allowing them to undertake highly complex research that would be impossible in their home labs.

The advanced centre will be at the forefront of its field, and will require significant environmental controls to ensure the accuracy of the scientific data it produces. Particular control is required over temperature variation, acoustic control, vibration and electromagnetic interference. In order to meet these demanding requirements, Interserve will be working at the limits of building construction technology. Examples of this include the construction of high tolerance anti-vibration structural slabs; the use of stringent air tightness and insulation measures to control temperature variation; and the inclusion of austenitic stainless steel reinforcement where required to minimise electromagnetic interference from the building structure.

(CD/MH)