In the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park, there is another kind of magic lamp, and people hope that its bright light will bring about a miracle in the development of technology in Taiwan.
This magic lamp is a giant one, with a diameter of 40 meters and a circumference of 120 meters. From a distance, the building holding it looks a bit like a domed stadium. Located in the northwest corner of the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park, that lamp inside the Synchrotron Radiation Research Center is a synchrotron accelerator.
Of course, it lacks the magic of Aladdin's lamp. In contrast to the park's highly profitable semiconductor and electronic companies, the center is all expense and no income, and there are certainly no expectations that it will become a goose that lays golden eggs. Strictly speaking, a synchrotron is a research tool, one of whose main uses is providing light beams for scientific experiments.
"Experiments carried out at universities and research institutions often yield inconclusive results because the light beams used are too weak or insufficient for proper analysis," notes Chen Chien-te, the center's director. When this is the case, researchers can use light beams produced by the synchrotron accelerator to attain conclusive results. Research in countries without such equipment proceeds at a disadvantage.
In the history of man's search for light sources, the beams produced by accelerators are the brightest yet.
Illuminating the mysteries of the universe
"Light is mankind's greatest tool for observing and researching nature," explains Chen.
In our daily lives, light from the sun is what allows us to see everything in the world. But when our ancestors learned how to make fire, they discovered a way to overcome darkness.
At the end of the 19th century, advances in science led to tremendous leaps in our understanding of light, and light bulbs started providing a strong and stable source of lighting.
From the standpoint of scientific research, the single greatest leap forward in the development of light sources occurred in 1895, when the German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered X-rays, which allowed people to see things that the naked eye couldn't, such as a body's inner structure.
A more concentrated form of light was found during the 20th century: lasers. These were used to observe tiny molecules of gas, which allowed for understanding of particles such as electrons.
"Each time a newer and stronger form of light is discovered, it opens up brand new realms for scientific research, which can lead to major new discoveries," notes Chen. Synchrotron radiation has also turned out to have the capacity, as it were, to shed new light.
A by-product of high-energy physics
Synchrotron radiation was discovered by accident, as a by-product of operating synchrotrons, particle accelerators originally used purely in physics research.
"Physicists use particle accelerators to find basic particles of matter," says Luke C. L. Yuan, a member of the Academia Sinica who recommended that the government build a synchrotron. He and his wife, physicist Wu Chien-hsiung, used early accelerators to carry out their physics research.
The term "particles" refers to the basic components of matter. Since ancient times, scientists have been probing matter to discover its structure and building blocks. Early on scientists thought that the natural world was built from molecules. Then they found that molecules were built from atoms, which were later determined to be composed of subatomic particles, such as protons, neutrons and electrons.
Today, scientists believe that matter can be broken apart still further. High-energy physicists employ accelerators to break apart particles by colliding them at high speed. By so doing they can determine how these particles interact or reveal their basic components, structures and characters. One famous overseas Chinese scientist, Samuel Ting, used an accelerator to discover the J particle, which earned him the Nobel Prize.
In 1947, scientists at General Electric discovered quite by accident that their synchrotron accelerator was radiating a thin layer of light. This light comprised large amounts of infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation and X-rays. Furthermore, it was 10,000 times brighter than the light created in traditional X-ray tubes. Virtually any substance or fine structure could be viewed very clearly under its radiation. They called this kind of radiation "synchrotron radiation."
This novelty started piquing the interest of scientists in other fields, some of whom began to conduct experiments when synchrotrons weren't being used for experiments in high-energy physics. Gradually an understanding about its applications arose in many scientific disciplines.
A small sun in the lab
"In the 1970s, scientists began to realize that synchrotron radiation was the greatest light source humanity had ever yet harnessed for scientific research," says Keng S. Liang, deputy director of the center. "And accelerators designed to produce maximum synchrotron radiation were built one after another." These represented the second generation of synchrotron accelerators.
Liang, who has carried out research using several American synchrotron accelerators, cites his experiences at Stanford. In addition to physicists, researchers in fields such as chemistry, biology, materials science and medicine were all interested in exploring how synchrotron radiation could help them and borrowed the accelerator for their own purposes. As a result, the scope of synchrotron radiation applications covers research in virtually every scientific field, and it is used both in basic scientific research and industry.
For instance, medical researchers have for several decades known that an active substance in the yew tree can stop the growth of cancer cells, but they were unclear about how it worked. Using synchrotron radiation to observe it, they quickly found the answer: It turned out that taxol, a unique component of the tree, inhibits cancer cell mitosis.
Lee Yuan-tse, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist who is president of the Academia Sinica, carried out experiments at the Advanced Light Source synchrotron at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, where he used the light beams produced by synchrotron radiation to study reactive encounters between molecules, hoping to find methods to improve air quality and energy efficiency.
It is interesting how synchrotrons have improved the atmosphere of scientific research and fostered greater cooperation. "In the past, laboratories were mostly divided according to individual disciplines, and researchers in different fields would be shut up in their own labs," Keng S. Liang notes. But synchrotron accelerators appeared over the research horizon like little suns, and researchers from various fields have gathered around them to carry out research together.
First in Asia
ROC researchers both in Taiwan and overseas were very conscious of the importance of synchrotron accelerators to research and development, and thus appealed to the government to fund one.
"In 1982 Chien Ssu-liang, who was then president of the Academia Sinica, visited the East Coast of the United States and gathered together a group of us overseas members of the Academia Sinica," Luke Yuan recalls. "He noted that Taiwan was doing pretty well in terms of applied science-using science to advance industrial and commercial development. But in basic research, especially in fields dependent on scientific experiments, Taiwan was quite weak. He asked us for our opinions and advice." Yuan recalls that the assembled scientists were almost unanimous in their call for a synchrotron accelerator.
After discussion at various levels and feasibility assessments, in January of 1984 the "Plan for the Synchrotron Radiation Research Center" was formally approved by the cabinet, and NT$1.2 billion to cover both construction costs and the training of personnel was allotted for the project. The accelerator was planned to have a circumference of 96 meters and to have ring operating energy of 1 GeV (1 billion electronvolts).
Science and technology are advancing at a rapid pace, and during the course of the preparations for the center here in Taiwan, overseas accelerator technology entered its third generation. "Scientists discovered that by adding some parts to the storage rings in accelerators, such as bending magnets and insertion devices, they could increase the level of precision ten times," Yuan says. "The brightness of the synchrotron radiation was thus increased even more, to about 1000 times its previous level." America and Europe thus began the design of a third generation of synchrotron accelerators.
This forced the ROC to change its plans, and in September of 1988 the "Revisions to the Synchrotron Radiation Research Center" were announced. The plans for the accelerator were changed to meet third-generation specs, raising ring operating energy to 1.3 GeV and the cost to NT$2.5 billion.
There are now more than 70 synchrotron accelerators operating around the world, but only eight are state-of-the-art third-generation facilities.
The first of these, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, was completed in 1992. Funded by various nations in the European Union, it is located in France and has ring operating energy of 6 GeV. The following year the second third-generation accelerator, the Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, was completed. Funded by the US government, it has ring operating energy of 1.9 GeV.
The ROC synchrotron accelerator was completed at virtually the same time as America's. Although only producing 1.3 GeV, it was the first third-generation synchrotron accelerator operating in Asia.
Japan, which has more than 10 first- and second-generation synchrotron accelerators, has just completed the world's most powerful synchrotron accelerator, which has ring operating energy of 8 GeV. In 1996, Korea also completed its own synchrotron accelerator, with 2 GeV.
10,000 times the power of an X-ray tube
Going for an inside look at the Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, we meet Director Chen Chien-te, who explains, "The synchrotron has three basic parts: the accelerator, the storage ring and the beamlines."
The fundamental principles behind the operation of a synchrotron are based in electromagnetic theory: when electrons moving at near the speed of light are subjected to a magnetic field, they can then be deflected to create strong radiation in a tangential direction-namely, synchrotron radiation.
Synchrotrons operate by heating tungsten filaments so as to give off electrons, which they move to near the speed of light, before directing them into storage rings via transport lines.
The storage rings accumulate electrons and move them along set tracks where they continue to release stable levels of synchrotron radiation.
At every place where these electrons deflect along the tracks in a storage ring, it is possible to establish an extraction port, where synchrotron radiation is used to form beamlines. Labs can be built at the end of these beamlines, thus allowing light to be used in various sorts of research work.
The scale and capacity of an accelerator depends upon such factors as the size of its storage rings, how much energy its continuously moving electrons hold, and the number of beamlines it provides. Hence, this giant lamp with a circumference of 120 meters is the storage ring, and the beamlines emanating from it in every direction are like the light beams given off by a lamp. It's just that all its light is wrapped up in vacuum tubes and is thus invisible.
A giant lamp
Luke Yuan notes that although the storage ring in Taiwan's center is smaller than those in other third-generation synchrotron radiation accelerators, the international scientific community has nonetheless marveled at Taiwan's accomplishment. Virtually all the elite ROC scientists in related fields both at home and abroad were mobilized for the project.
Six experts were hired in Taiwan and six overseas to form the board of directors, which was charged with overseeing assessment and setting strategy. The overseas committee members included two Nobel Prize winners (Ting Chao-chung and Lee Yuan-tse) and Wu Chien-hsiung, Pu Ta-pang, Luke Yuan and Teng Chang-li, all well-known academics. The committee members who resided in Taiwan included Li Kuo-ting, Tsiang Yen-shih, Wu Ta-yo, Yen Chen-hsang, Chien Ssu-liang and Chang Ming-che. Most of them had science and engineering backgrounds, were good at setting strategy and had attained high positions in government, industry or academia.
In addition, foreign experts were invited to sit on a technical review committee, which was charged with providing technical opinions.
These two committees have continued functioning down to the present, though their memberships have changed somewhat. In the middle of the December 1984 planning meeting, Professor Pu Ta-pang was struck by a heart attack and passed away. Wu Chien-hsiung, the "Chinese Madame Curie," also passed away in February of last year. But her husband, 80-year-old Luke Yuan, is still quietly working hard on behalf of the project, coming from America to Taiwan to direct and supervise the center, and recruiting personnel from all over.
These experts were the technological equivalent of government buying of shares to support the stock market. They have access to the highest levels and can obtain government support, "but they have also been able to make precise assessments and have made the most of their oversight powers." Cheng Shih-cheang, formerly a dean at Tunghai University and now the deputy director of the center, holds that the directors are the main reason the plans for developing the center went so smoothly.
Brain magnet
Yet when construction actually started, they still faced a lack of qualified personnel. "Back then, fields relating to synchrotron radiation simply didn't exist in Taiwan. We had never even heard of these kinds of instruments in school-let alone built them or used them," says Chiang Su-yu, an associate research scientist at the center.
For the staff that wasn't recruited from abroad, the center looked for talented individuals here in Taiwan and then trained them. Chief among the pools of talent from which the center drew were science and engineering personnel at the Industrial Technology Research Institute, the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwan University, Taiwan Normal University and Tsing Hua University.
For instance, Chiang Su-yu was doing post-doctoral work in the physics department of Tsing Hua University when he read that the center was holding a test for prospective researchers. Before seeing that notice, he says he hardly knew what a synchrotron was. After being hired, he was sent off to America to study how the synchrotron was used in research. About half of the researchers now at the center were similarly trained.
Fortunately, the center has served as a magnet for talented personnel, attracting many members of its staff from overseas.
When Pi Tun-wen, who was awarded his doctorate at the University of Iowa five years ago, read news about the establishment of the center, he thought that it would provide good career opportunities, and decided to study synchrotron technology. A year later, he obtained his PhD, and immediately returned to Taiwan to take a job at the center.
He recalls that when the accelerator was finished, the young staff worked night and day resolving problems and making tests and in only four months time was able to meet operational standards. Numerous foreign laboratories called or cabled to express their congratulations.
Pi explains that getting electrons to approach the speed of light, and then storing them in stable conditions in a channel five micrometers wide (that's one-fifth the diameter of a strand of hair) is a daunting task. The stability of the vacuum, the temperature and electricity can all influence the results.
"Foreign laboratories have usually required six months or more to meet stability requirements," says Keng S. Liang, who was still abroad at the time and very surprised when he heard the news.
Bringing the dragon back home
"The researchers are young, hard working and have a lot of potential," says Richard Sah, an associate director at the center responsible for accelerator operations and maintenance who worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory for 18 years and has participated in the establishment of several accelerators. He was invited to lecture at the center two years ago, and the workers, who mostly range in age from 30 to 45, made a deep impression on him. The center offered him a job in the hope that he would be able to pass along his abundant experience, and Sah gamely accepted.
The story behind how the center's director Chen Chien-te returned to Taiwan is also an example that people love to cite. Moreover, he didn't merely come back; he brought a "dragon" with him.
Chen used to be a researcher at Bell Labs in the United States, where he designed the world's first high-resolution X-ray synchrotron beamline. Because he was Chinese, his colleagues called the device the dragon. The dragon was studied and used by scientists in over 10 nations, and it acquired quite a reputation as a result. In 1996, after negotiations, Bell Labs decided to let the dragon go back to Taiwan with its master, selling it at a low cost to the center.
"In the early days Taiwan's scientific research funds were limited, and scientists here were only able to perform theoretical research, lacking the equipment to test out their theories," notes Li Wen-hsin, chairman of the physics department at Chung Cheng University. "As a result, most people interested in experimental research stayed in America to pursue their careers."
But as the ROC economy and government science expenditures grew, it became possible to carry out large-scale experiments, resulting in a significant return of talent from abroad.
"Public facilities" of the science world
When the construction of the synchrotron accelerator was completed, the ROC research community certainly had a powerful tool. "But to get research results you still need people to carry out the experiments. International comparisons are still made based on research results and not on how cutting edge your accelerator is," points out Chen Chien-te. In this respect, Taiwan has a weaker foundation.
The fact is that the synchrotron is just a research tool, and the vast majority of synchrotron centers around the world aim only to provide scientists with equipment for experiments, and don't attempt to carry out research themselves. But because there is not a widespread understanding in Taiwan about how to apply the synchrotron in research, the center formed its own research division to carry out research at the facility.
Keng S. Liang, who last year returned from the United States to head up responsibility for this research work, says that within the scientific community synchrotrons are regarded as public property. They are judged based on how efficiently they are used: the more people that can use their facilities for research, the better they are doing.
"In Taiwan, however, because there is not a widespread understanding of synchrotron research, we've got to bear more responsibility for leading the way in research," he notes. To promote the facility, researchers at the center frequently go to universities to teach classes with the idea of getting faculty and students interested in applying to use the synchrotron for research.
Now that there is more familiarity with the device, a steady stream of users has been coming on their own, and time on the synchrotron for 1998 has been completely booked out.
Stepping onto the international stage
Yet in meeting the needs of scientific experiments, there is room for improvement at the center.
"The light beams have been a little slow coming on line," says Yang An-pang, chairman of the physics department at Tunghai University. The center has the capacity for more than 40 light beams, but only eight have been completed to date. "On this scale, they would have all been completed abroad in about three years."
Moreover, "The energy capacity is small, and it is only possible to create ultra-violet and soft X-rays; the accelerator lacks higher-energy hard X-rays," says Huang Di-jing, an assistant researcher who has used the synchrotron to carry out research. The current capacity isn't quite sufficient for his research in solid-state physics.
On this point, Chen Chien-te argues that considering the level of funding and the size of the center's staff, the light beams have been coming on line pretty fast. Still, to meet researchers' needs, apart from doing all they can to make the light beams more powerful, they are also negotiating with the Japanese synchrotron center to co-fund three hard X-ray beams at the Japanese center that would be specially designated for use by Taiwan researchers.
"Their accelerator has ring operating energy of 8 GeV, making it the world's largest and most powerful third-generation accelerator producing hard X-rays," he says, noting that synchrotron accelerators are now regarded as tools used in international scientific exchange. Countries that have them are very open to letting scientists from other nations use them and thus share the results of scientific research.
Of course, there is a sense of competition here, like in international athletics meets. Through these exchanges, everyone is stimulated to improve. And competitiveness in science and technology is more connected to real national power.
Whether the shining high-tech industries in Taiwan will continue to grow in strength depends upon the support they are given by research and development work. Expectations are great for this "magic lamp."
p.42
A synchrotron is a large device used in scientific experiments. The photo shows Hsinchu's SRRC Accelerator. (courtesy of the Synchrotron Radiation Research Center)
p.45
Believing that a synchrotron would improve ROC research and development capabilities, physicist Luke Yuan promoted the establishment of the facility and helped to plan it. His contributions to the center have been great.
p.46
The Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, known as the "magic lamp," is located in Hsinchu's Science-Based Industrial Park, and Tsing Hua and Chiao Tung universities, both strong in science and engineering, are nearby. SRRC has become a center for scientific exchange. (courtesy of SRRC)
p.48
Center Director Chen Chien-te originally worked for Bell Labs in the United States, where he designed the world's first high-resolution X-ray beamline for a synchrotron. His American colleagues called it "the dragon," and when he came back to Taiwan, he brought the dragon with him.
p.50
A synchrotron used as a light source operates by accelerating electrons to near the speed of light, which are then directed into a storage ring. There, if moving continuously with a certain degree of stability, they will produce synchrotron radiation. Beamlines extend off the storage ring, providing light for experiments in laboratories. (courtesy of SRRC)
Synchrotron radiation includes large quantities of infrared light, visible light, ultraviolet light and X-rays. It's the brightest source of light yet available to mankind. (courtesy of SRRC)
p.51
Researchers in the nanotechnology laboratory of the industrial applications group proudly display the fruits of their labor: In less than three years, they were able to develop a gold-plated "mask" which will be used in the textile industry to produce a manmade thread that is thinner even than silk.
Center Director Chen Chien-te originally worked for Bell Labs in the United States, where he designed the world's first high-resolution X-ray beamline for a synchrotron. His American colleagues called it "the dragon," and when he came back to Taiwan, he brought the dragon with him.
Synchrotron radiation includes large quantities of infrared light, visible light, ultraviolet light and X-rays. It's the brightest source of light yet available to mankind. （courtesy of SRRC）
Synchrotron radiation includes large quantities of infrared light, visible light, ultraviolet light and X-rays. It's the brightest source of light yet available to mankind. （courtesy of SRRC）
Researchers in the nanotechnology laboratory of the industrial applications group proudly display the fruits of their labor: In less than three years, they were a ble to develop a goldplated "mask" which will be used in the textile industry to produce a manmade thread that is thinner even than silk.
@List.jpg?w=522&h=410&mode=crop&format=webp&quality=80)