Scientific win for Midland Tool and Design
Midland Tool and Design is to supply parts to a facility similar to the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Switzerland.
The West Midlands firm is producing the components for The Paul Scherrer Institute's SwissFEL (Free-Electron Laser) facility, which is designed to create intense, short flashes of X-ray light and fire them at extremely high speeds along a 700 m tunnel.
Beginning in 2015, the experiments will be similar to those at the Large Hadron Collider, which fire tiny particles at each other at the speed of light in an attempt to recreate the Big Bang and discover exactly how the universe was created.
SwissFEL scientists believe their investigations will eventually enable them to develop better drugs, more efficient energy systems or ultra-fast computers and data storage devices.
MTD has been asked to manufacture large laminations for magnets that will be used to focus and intensify the lasers as they travel through a linear accelerator.
