NINA synchrotron ring magnet coil

Cross-section of a magnet coil from the NINA (Northern Institute's Nuclear Accelerator) 5 GeV electron synchrotron accelerator at Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, installed 1964-1966.

This cross section of a magnet coil is from one of the 40 Ring Magnets (electromagnets) on the NINA (Northern Institute's Nuclear Accelerator) 5 GeV electron synchrotron accelerator at Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, installed 1964-1966. When a fault with one of the Ring Magnets required a coil to be replaced, the faulty coil was removed and cross-sectioned as a souvenir by the lead engineer. The coil represents the precursor method of constraining particles in an accelerator pre- super conducting magnets.

The NINA project at Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire exemplified postwar use of new regional sites for research beyond the traditional academic centres such as Cambridge and represents regional specialisations of scientific research.

Approval for a nuclear physics research laboratory at Daresbury was given by the Minister for Science in 1963. The high-energy particle accelerator NINA (Northern Institute's Nuclear Accelerator) was constructed between 1963 and 1965 and first operated in 1966. The Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory officially opened in 1967. Synchrotron Radiation (SR) research began at Daresbury Laboratory in 1968, with the approval of a Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SRF) that made use of radiation from NINA.