Accelerator-based research activities at Centro Nacional de Aceleradores, Seville (Spain)

In February 1998, almost 10 years ago, the set-up of the first IBA (ion beam analysis) facility in Spain took place with the arrival of a 3 MV tandem accelerator [J. Garcia-Lopez, F.J. Ager, M. Barbadillo-Rank, F.J. Madrigal, M.A. Ontalba, M.A. Respaldiza, M.D. Ynsa, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. B 161-163 (2000) 1137]. Since then, an intensive research program using IBA techniques has been carried out. Subsequently, a cyclotron for 18 MeV protons has been also installed at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA), devoted mainly to isotope production for PET (positron emission tomography) techniques, but possibly applied to material analysis and damage studies on a dedicated beam line. Moreover, a 1 MV tandem has been recently installed for AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) C-14 dating and environmental research with other isotopes. In the present paper we describe the new facilities and the developments of the 3 MV tandem beam lines occurred during the past years, as well as some examples of the most recent research activities in our Center in the fields of Material Science, Archaeometry, Biomedicine and Environment. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.