EROS: 1984-1996
Linear accelerators have an inherently low duty cycle, and one solution to this is to add a storage ring - a so-called pulse-stretcher ring (PSR). The short particle bursts from the LINAC are injected into the storage ring, and in the time between two bursts the circulating electrons are slowly extracted from it, to give a nearly continuous beam. A PSR had been proposed for SAL as far back as 1971, and much of the pioneering work on PSRs had been performed by SAL scientists. In 1983 funding was obtained for a PSR for SAL, and the resulting machine was dubbed the Electron Ring of Saskatchewan (EROS). As an economical solution, the ring was squeezed into the existing building by the "ingenious expedient" of hanging it from the ceiling. An energy compression system was also installed in the late 1980s, and by 1990, with EROS operational, SAL was once more at the forefront of medium energy nuclear physics. In 1991 the underground experimental area EA2 was enlarged to house a new electron scattering spectrometer. By 1994 SAL was operating 24/7, delivering about 5000 hours of beam for experiments per year.
By the mid 1990s, the declining interest in sub-atomic science in Canada, and the need to refurbish the aging LINAC, convinced NSERC to phase out use of the LINAC. In 1994 an NSERC panel had proposed that a synchrotron should be built in Canada, and SAL director Dennis Skopik convinced the University to bid to host the new facility.
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