Lok Sabha Question No. 1639 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2020-09-21
Subject: R&D Centres
Ministry: ATOMIC ENERGY
Asked by: Bhola Singh, Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo, Jayanta Kumar Roy, Raja Amareshwara Naik, Vinod Kumar Sonkar, Sukanta Majumdar

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

## DEPARTMENT OF ATOMIC ENERGY LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.1639

TO BE ANSWERED ON 21.09.2020

## R&D CENTRES

## 1639.      SHRI BHOLA SINGH:

SHRIMATI SANGEETA KUMARI SINGH DEO:

DR. JAYANTA KUMAR ROY:

SHRI RAJA AMARESHWARA NAIK:

SHRI VINOD KUMAR SONKAR:

DR. SUKANTA MAJUMDAR:

Will the PRIME MINISTER be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government has set up Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology for  Research  and  Development  (R&D)  in  non-nuclear  front  line  research  areas  of Lasers, Particle Accelerators & related technologies;
- (b) if so, the details thereof along with its achievements in terms of research output since its inception;
- (c) whether  the  Government  is  planning  to  open  more  such  R&D  centres  across  the country;
- (d) if so, the details thereof; and
- (e) the other steps being taken by the Government for promotion of R&D in the areas of Lasers,  Particle  Accelerators  and  related  technologies  in  India  during  the  last  five years?

## ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR PERSONNEL, PUBLIC GRIEVANCES & PENSIONS AND PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE (Dr. JITENDRA SINGH):

- (a) Yes, Sir.
- (b) Raja  Ramanna  Centre  for  Advanced  Technology  (RRCAT)  was  established  by  the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) in June 1986, India to expand its activities in two frontline areas of science and technology namely Lasers and Accelerators.

Major activities being pursued at RRCAT are as follows:

- i) Synchrotron radiation sources (Indus-1 & 2), Advanced light sources using insertion devices, and Free electron lasers.
2. ii) High  intensity  superconducting  proton  accelerator:  design  studies  and technology development for future projects.
3. iii)  Electron accelerators for societal applications.

- iv)  Development of lasers of different types and their applications.
- v) R&D in materials, cryogenics, superconductivity etc.
- vi)  Participation  in  international  collaborations  /  mega-projects:  Centre  has participated in various international projects, wherein it has been the nodal agency for collaboration with CERN, Geneva for the LHC project and other associated  activities.  The  Centre  is  one  of  the  major  participants  in  the Indian Institutions Fermilab Collaboration (IIFC).
- vii) Presently,  the  Centre  is  the  nodal  agency  for  the  setting  up  of  the  LIGO project in India.

## Major achievements of RRCAT are as follows:

- a) Indus  Synchrotron  Radiation  facility,  established  by  RRCAT,  is  being extensively used as a National Facility. The indigenously developed Indus Synchrotron Sources at RRCAT, Indus-1 (450 MeV, 100 mA) and Indus-2 (2.5  GeV,  200  mA),  have  been  operating round-the-clock  since  February, 2010.
- b) Sixteen beamlines on Indus-2 and six beamlines on Indus-1 are currently operational.  Out  of  these  sixteen  beamlines,  three  beamlines,  namely: Engineering  applications  beamline,  Small  and  wide  angle  x-ray  scattering beamline and Grazing incidence x-ray scattering beamline, were commissioned in the year 2018-19.  Researchers from nearly 150 institutes and national laboratories from all over India are using these beamlines for their  research activities. During the calendar year 2019, a total number of 945 user experiments were carried out at the different Indus beamlines and 175 publications were made in peer-reviewed journals. In the recent past, there has also been an increase in the usage of the Indus beamline facilities by the R&D  sector of private pharmaceutical industries. Five  more beamlines are in various stages of completion, which include two bending magnet beamlines and three insertion device (ID) based beamlines.
- c) An Infra-Red Free Electron Laser (IR-FEL) has been built at RRCAT and saturation  of  lasing  has  been  achieved  with  an  out-coupled  CW  average power of 5 - 7 mW and peak power ~ 4 mW in 10 picosecond long pulses at a wavelength of 28 micrometers. The IR-FEL is designed to lase in the 12.5 - 50 micrometers wavelength region with an electron beam of 15 - 25 MeV and  a  2.5  m  long,  pure  permanent  magnet  undulator.    A  commensurate

- user facility has been developed to use the infra-red radiation from the IRFEL for the spectroscopy of materials under low temperature (down to 5 K) and high magnetic field (up to 7 Tesla) environments.
- d) RRCAT  has  established  an Agricultural Radiation Processing  Facility (ARPF)  at  Devi  Ahilya  Bai  Holkar  Fruit  and  Vegetable  Mandi,  Indore  for societal applications of electron beam processing. The heart of this facility are  two  10  MeV  energy,  5  kW  power  linear  accelerators,  developed indigenously  at  RRCAT.    On  January  25,  2019,  the  processing  facility obtained required licence from Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) for running  as  a  facility.  The  electron  beam  radiation  processing  of  various products is being carried out by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) as well as by various ICAR institutes, universities and industries on regular basis  to  demonstrate  usefulness  of  the  electron  beam  technology  for  a variety  of  social  applications.  Some  of  the  major  applications  already demonstrated  include  mutation  breeding  of  new  crop  varieties  (pulses, wheat,  rice,  millets,  etc.),  microbial  decontamination  of  dehydrated  food products and phytosanitary treatment of rice seeds, improvement  in functional properties of semiconductors switching devices, colour modification  of  gems,  preservation  of  food  products  including  spices, sterilization of medical devices, damage assessment of solar cells and other sensors  for  research  in  space  applications.  RRCAT  is  in  the  process  of obtaining  FDA license for sterilization  of  Risk  Class-A medical  devices by electron beam radiation processing at the facility.
- e) RRCAT  has  built  facilities  and  expertise  to  develop  almost  all  the  subsystems  required  for  accelerators,  including  RF  technology,  magnets, vacuum, beam diagnostics, precision mechanical positioning and alignment, control system, superconducting radio frequency cavities etc. The R&D in accelerator technology has also led to several spin-offs for societal benefits.
- f) In the area of lasers, several lasers like lamp pumped and diode pumped solid  state  lasers,  copper  vapor  lasers,  fiber  lasers,  semiconductor  diode lasers  and  laser  based  systems  have  been  developed  for  industrial, medical,  nuclear  and  research  applications.    An  important  aspect  of  the R&D in lasers and associated technologies is the successful deployment of several lasers and optics based tools and processes developed in-house for the maintenance, refurbishing, diagnostics, medical and metrology related

- applications in nuclear reactors and other nuclear installations. It has helped in  saving  precious  man-days,  saving  associated  costs  and  in  minimizing manrem consumption and shutdown time. These include remotely operable fiber  coupled  lasers  with  customized  tools,  which  have  been  deployed for cutting operations in the high radiation environment of nuclear reactors and in  narrow  constrained  regions,  which  are  otherwise  not  possible  with conventional mechanical methods.
- g) Several  laser  based  instruments  have  been  developed  for  various  DAE applications and also for societal applications. A portable version of Raman Optical  Fiber  Distributed  Temperature  Sensor  (ROFDTS)  system  using  a 532 nm pulsed laser and 200/220 µm sized, 150 m long multimode sensing fiber has been developed and demonstrated. The developed ROFDTS was installed for temperature monitoring of a vacuum section of a beam line in Indus-2.  An  FBG  based  temperature  sensor  set-up  has  been  developed and  deployed  at  the  Advanced  Fuel  Fabrication  Facility  (AFFF),  BARC, Tarapur,  to  monitor  the  temperature  of  microwave  heated  nuclear  fuel processing chamber. RRCAT has developed two optical technology based, easy-to-use, portable and low cost health-care instruments, a 'TuBerculoScope'  and  an  'OncoDiagnoScope'.  The  'TuBerculoScope'  is an easy-to-use, compact and portable optical device for rapid detection of TB while 'OncoDiagnoScope' is intended for instant, non-invasive screening  of  oral  cavity  cancer.    Both  these  systems  have  undergone validation through various clinical studies in hospital settings. Units of these instruments  have  been  handed  over  to  various  hospitals  including  Homi Bhabha  Cancer  Hospital,  Varanasi,  Institute  of  Medical  Sciences,  BHU, Varanasi  and  Homi  Bhabha  Cancer  Hospital,  Sangrur  for  their  further clinical validation over large number of patients.  Data generated from these instruments  will  help  develop  more  robust  instruments  for  large  scale deployment of these instruments.  The technology of "TuberculoScope' has been successfully transferred to an Indian industry. Further, the technology of  a  hand-held  Raman  probe,  developed  at  RRCAT,  which  is  capable  of generating  good  quality  Raman  spectra  from  low  Raman  active  materials like biological tissues has also been transferred to an Indian industry.
- h) RRCAT has designed a UV-C light based mobile sanitization device (called 'NeelBhasmi') intended for remote sanitization of air as well as the surfaces of  various  objects  (including  glass,  plastic,  cloth  etc.)  inside  a  room.  The technology of NeelBhasmi has been transferred to four Indian industries.

- i) Based  on  in-house  developed  technologies,  sixteen  patents  have  been granted to the center while fifteen technologies have been transferred to the industry.
- j) Based on the research work carried out in the center, 3713 research papers have  been  published  (since  1987)  in  various  national  and  international journals.
3. (c) DAE does not have any specific plans to set up research centres like RRCAT.
4. (d) Not applicable.
5. (e) DAE  has  developed  a  long-term  roadmap  for  accelerator  technologies.  In  the  first phase, a Low Energy High Intensity Proton Accelerator (LEHIPA), with energy of 20 MeV and intensity of 10 mA was taken up by BARC. In second phase it is planned to develop Medium Energy High Intensity Proton Accelerator (MEHIPA) and then High Intensity Superconducting Proton Accelerators (HISPA).

Some of the R&D activities undertaken with respect to accelerator technologies are:-

- i. Acceleration up to 3 MeV has been demonstrated in LEHIPA project.
- ii. Indigenous  development  of  a  Radio  Frequency  Quadrupole  (RFQ)  was done.
- iii. India  has  already  made  and  supplied  superconducting  cavities,  power amplifiers,  magnets  and  controls  for  (Proton  Injector  Project)  PIP-II  project which was tested and accepted at Fermilab.
- iv. 10  MeV  electron  accelerator  has  been  developed  and  utilised  for  diverse societal applications such as irradiation of chitosan (a bio stimulator used in agriculture)  to  enhance  sugar  cane  production  and  various  other  R&D studies.
- v. Development  of  electron  accelerators  such  as  1  MeV  (for  environmental applications) and dual energy (for security) LINAC was initiated.
- vi. Research to explore newer techniques of selective excitation in molecules, development  and  application  of  lasers  for  improving  biomaterial  properties and  conducting  studies  on  laser-surface  interaction.  Laser  based  security system and instrumentations were developed and some of these technologies were transferred to private entrepreneurs.

Some of R&D activities undertaken the area of related Plasma technologies are:-

- a) Work  in  the  area  of  thermal  plasma  for  non-nuclear  applications  like  high temperature  thermal  barrier  and  corrosion  resistant  coating  of  refractory materials (like yttrium oxide, aluminium oxide etc.) was initiated.
- b) A totally indigenous 30 kW Hafnium cathode based DC Air plasma torch has been  developed.  The  torches  are  being  deployed  for  management  of municipal solid wastes in an environment friendly manner.
- c) Work undertaken for nitrogen functionalization of multiwall carbon nano-tubes using  Cold  Atmospheric  Plasma  (CAP)  to  enhance  hydrophilicity  of  nanotubes for assisting process requirement in manufacturing of 'Bhabha Kavach'.

Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), Kolkata a unit of DAE,  has carried out the following  R&D  activities  during  last  five  years,  in  the  related  areas  of  Particle Accelerators and related technologies:-

- i. Design  and  development  of  650  MHz,  low  beta  Superconducting  Radio Frequency  (SRF) cavity  has  been  carried  out,  as  part  of  R&D  activities  on SRF  and  associated  technologies  under  Indian  Institutions  and  Fermilab Collaboration (IIFC). Fabrication and testing of prototype cavity of 650 MHz, beta=0.61 superconducting RF linac cavity has been successfully carried out. Development of 5-cell SRF cavity is in progress.
- ii. The high intensity proton beam acceleration at the Medical Cyclotron facility of VECC has been installed, commissioned and production of radioisotopes/radiopharmaceuticals and also R&D  activities on Material Science have been started.
- iii. The  beam  from  K-500  Superconducting  cyclotron  have  been  accelerated, extracted and transported to the scattering chamber of user beam line.

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