BEST Subsidiary RI Research Instruments Awarded Major Contract for Two Superconducting Accelerator Modules for Pohang Acceler...

RI Research Instruments GmbH, a majority-owned subsidiary of Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST), Inc., today announced the award of a 4.2 million Euro (approximately $5.7 million USD) contract with the South Korea-based Pohang Accelerator Laboratory (PAL) for the supply of two superconducting accelerator modules.

This contract covers the engineering, manufacturing, integration, testing, delivery and installation of two 500 MHz superconducting accelerator modules for the upgrade of PAL’s third generation synchrotron light source, the Pohang Light Source (PLS). The PLS is operated as a national user facility designed to provide synchrotron radiation with continuous wavelengths down to 1µ, owned and operated by PAL and the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH ) on behalf of the Korean government. The PLS, which has been operated for 15 years, will be upgraded by 2011/2012 to produce synchrotron radiation with 100 times higher brightness.

Dr. Michael Peiniger, Managing Director of RI Research Instruments, explained: “This award represents the increasingly sophisticated continuation of a series of similar superconducting accelerating modules, originally based on a design by Cornell University and refined by RI to industrial standards. Several synchrotron light sources in Shanghai, Great Britain, Taiwan and Canada are successfully operating with such supercon accelerator modules delivered by RI. With this Pohang contract, we are well positioned for future applications in synchrotron light sources and other accelerator projects using superconducting radio-frequency (srf) technology.”

RI also announced an approximately $750,000 contract amendment to the $6 million contract with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia (www.jlab.org) for the production of 86 superconducting accelerating cavities, which was announced in July 2009. This contract modification covers all the radio frequency (rf) measurements and calibrations, as well as the cleaning of the interior surfaces of the cavities. Chemical cleaning is a key process in the ultimate performance of superconducting cavities and requires the application of detergents, followed by ultrapure water rinsing in an almost particle-free environment. RI has performed such state-of-the-art operations at its special-purpose facilities for several years.

Hanspeter Vogel, Director of RI Research Instruments GmbH, commented: “This second JLAB award is a perfect complement to the ongoing production of cavities for Jefferson Laboratory, and demonstrates again our broad range of abilities for the production and treatment of superconducting cavities. This contract will further develop our capabilities for production and treatment of cavities and complete srf accelerator modules for global applications in basic energy and nuclear science, high energy physics, as well as for the International Linear Collider (ILC). We are committed to serving our global research customers with complete accelerator subsystems, as well as with specialized series production services for sophisticated accelerator modules.”

About RI Research Instruments and Bruker EST, Inc.:

RI Research Instruments GmbH is a world leader in the development and manufacturing of normal and superconducting rf cavities and systems, linear accelerators, as well as special products for physics and energy research, scientific, medical and industrial applications. RI products also include high-performance electron and ion sources, particle beamlines and diagnostics, research reactor subunits as well as vacuum and cryogenic systems. RI Research Instruments was formed as a result of BEST’s April 1, 2009 acquisition of the research instruments business of ACCEL Instruments GmbH from Varian Medical Systems. Bruker acquired a majority stake in RI Research Instruments and retained Dr. Michael Peiniger as Managing Director. BEST has operations in the US, the UK and Germany, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ: BRKR).

For more information, please visit: www.research-instruments.de or www.bruker-est.com