With more than three decades of experience in the field of accelerator driven science, Inter University Accelerator Centre (formerly -Nuclear Science Centre) has earned its reputation of excellence in the Indian academia. IUAC is an autonomous body of UGC established in 1984 as first Inter-University Centre under section 12(ccc) of the UGC Act, 1956 since heavy investment in infrastructure and input is beyond the reach of the individual university to obtain these facilities.

The primary objective of the Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) was to establish within the university system world class facilities for accelerator based research with an objective of developing competence and promoting research in front line areas of science and technology in Indian Universities by providing institutional framework for optimum utilisation of such major research facilities. Its aim is to formulate common research programmes of research and development in collaboration with universities, IITs and other research institutions. It promotes group activities and human research development in experimental science and other branches of knowledge. From its founding in 1984, the IUAC formerly Nuclear Science Centre has been committed to open, rigorous, and intense inquiry with a shared understanding that this must be the defining feature of the user universities. IUAC recognizes that our most important contributions to discovery, education, and society rest on our focus, the power of our ideas, and the openness of our environment to the development and testing of these ideas.

IUAC has defined academic disciplines, schools, and modes of thought and has had a transformative impact on fields like Nuclear Physics, Molecular & Atomic Physics, Materials Science, Radiation Biology, Geochronology. We have a pool of dedicated research and technical support staff, who work together in an interactive and genuinely multidisciplinary eco-system. Students from the College, Universities, and Technical Institutions have been empowered by their education at IUAC and have become leaders in virtually every area of endeavour.

We are located in Delhi, the capital of India. We operate heavy ion accelerator facility, consists of a 15UD/16MV Pelletron tandem accelerator and a superconducting booster linear accelerator (SC-LINAC). The tandem accelerator has multi-cathode SNICS source that can produce ion beams ranging from proton to lead. Stable operation is currently limited to a maximum potential of 13 MV. DC and pulsed beams (with chosen repetition rate, especially for 12C and above) can be delivered to various experimental areas. Superconducting linear accelerator is based on solid niobium quarter wave resonators housed in three cryostat modules each having eight resonators. Presently, the booster LINAC accelerator is used to boost ion beams ranging from C to Ag. The beam energies are variable and can be changed within a short tuning period. These accelerators form the heart of the core facilities for doing majority of the accelerator based research by university users in India. There is an ongoing development to commission a High Current Injector (HCI) consisting of superconducting (based on high Tc superconducting coil) Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source, Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ), six Drift Tube LINAC (DTL) modules and beam transfer line composed of three momentum achromat sections to inject the beam into the SC-LINAC. The intensities of beams are expected to increase by couple of orders of magnitude. Thus, the potential of Beam hall II experimental facilities for nuclear physics research can be fully exploited using high energy, high intensity beams from HCI + SC-LINAC combination. Pivotal to these facilities are active educational programs in the colleges and universities in locations throughout the India, and the ongoing interaction of scholars and students at work with colleagues from around the globe.

State-of-the-art experimental facilities provide important infrastructure for research in basic experimental nuclear physics, accelerator mass spectrometry and ion-beam modification and analysis of materials. Experimental facilities are attached to dedicated beam lines installed in two halls, Beam Hall - I and Beam Hall - II. Beam hall - I facilities use beams accelerated from Pelletron tandem accelerator only. The main objective of the Centre is to provide facilities for internationally competitive research and opportunities for growth of trained manpower conversant with the technologies related to the focused area of accelerator-based research in the Indian universities.

Nuclear physics research account for a large portion of beam time provided in these large accelerators. The major nuclear physics related facilities are (i) recoil mass spectrometer with ED-MD-ED ion-optical configuration (first in Asia), namely, Heavy Ion Reaction Analyzer (HIRA), (ii) Gamma Detector Array (GDA) initially consisting of twelve high purity germanium detectors and (iii) General Purpose Scattering Chamber (GPSC) of internal diameter 1.5 m in Beam Hall I and (iv) dual stage, dual mode recoil separator/spectrometer, HYbrid Recoil mass Analyzer (HYRA) which can operate in gas-filled as well as in vacuum mode, (v) Indian National Gamma Array (INGA) with pooled germanium clover detectors (up to 24) from Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata research centers and (vi) National Array of Neutron Detectors (NAND) consisting of a hundred 5” x 5” liquid scintillators positioned in a dome-shaped array of 1.75 m radius, in Beam Hall II. Several other smaller, but crucial, ancillary detectors augument the major facilities. Some of these facilities are coupled together, as a whole or in parts, for exclusive measurements. HIRA has also been used to produce low intensity, highly pure 7Be RIB (first RIB used for experiments in India) produced in inverse kinematics and separated using in-flight technique. HIRA, HYRA and NAND are unique facilities at IUAC as they are the only facilities of their kind in India.

The fields of research being pursued include (i) fusion and transfer around and below Coulomb barrier, (ii) Channel coupling effects and barrier distributions, (iii) Compound nuclear decay, Fission hindrance and nuclear viscosity effects, (iv) shell closure, deformation and entrance channel dependence, (v) elastic scattering and quasi-elastic back-scattering, (vi) incomplete fusion reactions, (vii) fission angular and mass distributions and/or neutron multiplicities, (viii) fusion-fission dynamics and effect of quasi-fission, (ix) angular momentum distributions in fusion evaporation reactions, (x) GDR decay, (xi) high spin spectroscopy, (xii) shape changes with spin, (xiii) chirality, (xiv) magnetic and anti-magnetic rotations, (xv) lifetime measurements using Doppler Shift Attenuation Method (DSAM) and Recoil Decay Method (RDM), (xvi) microsecond isomer decay, (xvii) Coulomb excitation, (xviii) nuclear g-factor and quadrupole moment measurements, etc.

A 1.7 MV Pelletron accelerator has been installed at IUAC equipped with radio frequency ion source for producing negatively charged He ions. The overall facility has 1.7 MV Pelletron accelerator, a RBS chamber and a 4-axis goniometer with a surface barrier detector to measure the number and energy of ions backscattered after colliding with atoms of the sample enabling the determination of atomic mass and elemental concentration versus depth below the surface. Two Low Energy Ion Beam Facilities (LEIBF) have also been developed and are operational at IUAC. A positive ion beam facility has been setup using an Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source mounted on a high voltage deck. The positive ion accelerator (or ion implanter) provides multiple charged positive ion beams with a wide range of relatively lower, tunable energy (~ 50 keV to about 3 MeV) for experiments in Atomic, Molecular and Materials Sciences. The negative ion accelerator (or implanter) facility provides negative ion beams up to 200 keV and uses an ion source based on sputtering by cesium ions. This facility is extensively used for ion implantation studies, which have wide applications in pursuit of Materials Science basic research.

A 500kV Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) facility for radiocarbon dating has been established at IUAC for dating or time-stamping of geological and prehistoric samples. The facility uses a 500kV Pelletron accelerator and automated graphitization equipment (AGE). AMS is an ultra-sensitive technique and can be applied for the detection of long-lived radionuclides in many branches of science e.g. Geology, Archaeology, Hydrology, Environmental Science, Bio-medicine, etc. This facility has capabilities to perform 10Be and 26Al measurements as well.

IUAC also intends to participate under Coordinated Research Project (CRP) for facilitating access to “guests” from all IAEA Member States. Besides, IUAC is in the process of identifying “Joint University-IUAC Ion Beam Centre (IBC)” among upcoming facilities viz. Focused Ion Beam facility with a 1.7 MV High Current Tandem Accelerator at IIT-Kanpur; 200 KV ion beam facility at High-Fluence Ion Beam Facility at University of Allahabad, Prayagraj; National Centre for Accelerator-Based Research at Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, Bilaspur and the Mumbai University Accelerator Centre (MUAC).

We invite you to visit our campus and other facilities, inquire about the programs and activities that interest you, and participate in the vital accelerator based research community.