History
The roots of Pinstech travels back to 1951 when Abdus Salam, a young and ambitious scientist, came back to Pakistan with a doctorate in physics. In 1953, Salam was unable to established the institute as he faced strong opposition from his peers. As time passes, he soon faced the choice between intellectual death or migration to the stimulating environment of a western institutions from Pakistan. This choice, however, left a deep impression on him and was behind his determination to create an institution to which physicists from developing countries would come as a right to interact with their peers from industrially advanced countries without permanently leaving their own countries. Establishing the world class physics research institute, roughly equivalent to CERN, in Pakistan, was a dream of dr. Abdus Salam who initiated the establishment of PINSTECH. As Science Advisor to the Government of Pakistan, Abdus Salam had pressed the Government of Pakistan as well as Pakistan Defence Forces to invest and promote science (mainly physics research) in the country as well as in the military.
In 1965, dr. Abdus Salam traveled to United States where he signed an agreement with Edward Durell Stone. The establishment of PINSTECH was a dream of professor Abdus Salam who, gave the directorship of this institute to Rafi Muhammad Chaudhry, a professor of nuclear physics at Salam's Alma mater—Government College University (GCU). However, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, President at that time, orchestrated and established the Nuclear detterence programme loosely based on Manhattan Project of 1940s, Salam took over the operations of PINSTECH institute to supervised the development of the weapons, research, and contributions leading the rise of physics at its maximum level in Pakistan.
Because the experiments were deemed too dangerous to conduct in a major city of Islamabad, the operations were moved a hill station near Islamabad. The operations were supervised by Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers, and it was highly secured both by the Pakistan Army and the Pakistan Air Force.
With the establishment of facility, PINSTECH became a focal point for Pakistani scientists to conduct research in physics. In 1967, the basic and applied science research in PINSTECH picked up its speed, when Pakistani scientists feared that India was rapidly developing an atomic bomb. Throughout the time, both the laboratories and the nearby city of Nilore was built up by Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers. The Nilore became restricted and secret city. After the 1971 Winter War, the site was one of the integral site for the nuclear weapons research.
The goal of the Project-706 activities in PINSTECH was to reprocess the reactor grade plutonium into weapon grade in developing of nuclear weapons. This work carried out in four different faciltiies, PARR-I Reactor, PARR-II Reactor, New Labs, and the Charged Particle Accelerator. The New Labs was dedicated to the production of the weapon grade plutonium of 239Pu. The PARR-II Reactor was dedicated to utilize ~90% 235U at a power level of 30kw.
In 1983, Nuclear Physics Group working under Ishfaq Ahmad successfully produced the 239Pu, a weapon grade plutonium. This Weapon-grade plutonium was later tested in Kirana Hills. Throughout the formulative year, the scientists and engineers at PINSTECH carried out technologically advanced research at Charged Particle Accelerator. In May 30, 1998, the PAEC scientists and engineers had performed the second nuclear test—codename Chagai-II— of a fissionable device, and the device's weapon grade plutonium was produced at the New Labs. The research reactors at the institute were last upgraded by Munir Ahmad Khan — chairman of PAEC at that time — as he led both Electronics Division (ED) and Nuclear Engineering Division (NED) in 1989.
As of today, PINSTECH has been shifted to peacetime research in medicine, biology, materials and physics. Its Molybdenum-42 facility was used to medical radioisotopes for treating cancer. Scientists from Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB) and Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) had been using the PINSTECH facilities to conduc advanced research in both medical and food sciences.
Read more about this topic: Pakistan Institute Of Nuclear Science And Technology
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