This is one of three bold and innovative McMaster projects that received a total of $35 million in federal investment from the Canada Foundation for Innovation this week.
Click here to learn about the Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy.
Click here to learn about the MACMINDS facility.
McMaster physicists Bruce Gaulin and Pat Clancy are playing key roles in strengthening a national neutron beam program that was on the verge of collapse eight years ago.
Gaulin and Clancy are co-leads of a cross-Canadian project involving 16 universities that’s been awarded $13.5 million from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI).
That funding builds on a previous investment of $14.25 million in CFI funding that Gaulin secured to start rebuilding Canada’s neutron beam research.
The investments are a boon for scientists, engineers and all Canadians, says Gaulin, Distinguished University Professor and Brockhouse Chair in the Physics of Materials.
CFI funding has supported the launch and growth of the Canadian Neutron Beam Laboratory at the McMaster Nuclear Reactor, the roll-out and implementation of a national neutron strategy as part of a Canadian long-range plan, the founding of Neutrons Canada and the forging of international partnerships to give Canadian researchers access to world-leading neutron laboratories.
The latest CFI award will support operations at the beam laboratory, construction of a new neutron imaging station, new collaborations with neutron beam facilities in Europe and will fund the technical design study for a new compact accelerator-based neutron source.
All of it aims to support researchers in making new discoveries that drive made-in-Canada innovations in clean energy, transportation, advanced manufacturing, defence, health and medicine, food sustainability and information technologies.
Neutron scattering research also saves lives — it’s used to verify the quality of metal components in every turbine jet engine fan blade being installed on aircraft.
The next generation of innovation
“Neutron scattering is an essential component of Canada’s tool kit to solve sophisticated materials research problems,” says Gaulin. “Neutron beams are something that Canadian industrial, government and academic researchers absolutely require to remain competitive with the rest of the world.”
Streams of neutrons produced by nuclear reactors are used to probe the atomic and molecular structure and dynamics inside materials that can’t be studied with any other scientific tools.
This information then allows for a microscopic understanding of the properties of new materials — properties that can be harnessed and incorporated into new technologies.
“A strong Canada needs a strong neutron beam program,” says Clancy, an associate professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy.
“The next generation of innovations in health, science and technology depend on the discovery and development of new materials through leading edge research using neutron beams.”
A new lease on life for neutron work
Canada’s neutron beam program was on the verge of collapse in 2018 with the closure of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River Laboratories in the Ottawa Valley.
The bulk of the country’s neutron scattering work — supporting the research of more than 800 scientists, engineers and students at dozens of Canadian universities — was carried out at that reactor.
At the same time, Canada’s sole partnership with a large-scale American neutron source expired.
Demand now outstripped supply. Canadian researchers were left scrambling for beam time and at serious risk of being left on the sidelines. An estimated 10,000 scientists and engineers around the world rely on neutrons for their research. Those neutrons are supplied by just 15 major sources located primarily in Europe, the United States and Asia.
Even when the National Research Universal Reactor was online, the existing neutron facilities around the world were badly oversubscribed, says Gaulin. Researchers compete for limited available beam times and access to specialized research infrastructure by submitting proposals with no guarantee of being approved. That competition and uncertainty intensified for Canadian researchers in 2018.
Gaulin saw an opportunity for the McMaster Nuclear Reactor to help meet demand and become a long-term Canadian source for neutrons. The research reactor, which came online in 1959, is the only facility of its kind in Canada and just one of seven in North America.
The reactor would play a key role in anchoring Canada’s neutron beam program, with both the infrastructure and an expert team of instrument scientists, engineers, technologists and technicians already in place.
The reactor already had two scattering facilities with the space to add more. Clancy helped build the first facility while he was a graduate student with Gaulin’s research team. He built the second facility when he returned in 2017 as a postdoctoral fellow and instrument scientist with McMaster’s neutron scattering program.
Funding from the CFI helped unlock the McMaster Nuclear Reactor’s full potential and secure additional investments. Building on approximately $27 million in federal and provincial infrastructure support, the Canadian Neutron Beam Laboratory officially launched in November 2024. Gaulin serves as the lab’s director with Clancy as the deputy director.
The laboratory offers researchers from across the country a suite of facilities to conduct materials research. Three more neutron diffraction instruments plus a neutron imaging instrument are planned in the stations that ring the reactor.
An exciting future
The new CFI funding will provide neutron beam time for materials research on clean energy technology, health and food sustainability and quantum technology, which is where Gaulin and Clancy will focus their research.
Together with professors Meigan Aronson and Alannah Hallas at the University of British Columbia and professor Young-June Kim of University of Toronto, they’ll use the Canadian Neutron Beam Laboratory to explore the unique properties of quantum materials.
Quantum processors, superconducting electronics and circuits and spintronics could dramatically enhance the speed and capacity of information technologies.
Clancy says new superconducting materials are ideal candidates for driving advances in fusion energy generation, batteries, sensors and medical applications like next generation magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines.
“We’re still early in the rebuilding stage of our national neutron scattering capabilities, with many challenges still to overcome,” says Gaulin.
“Nonetheless, this is a very exciting time for neutron scattering research in Canada and around the world, with McMaster and the Canadian Neutron Beam Laboratory at the centre of it.”