China launches world's first heavy-ion beam facility(2)

A picture of a part of the facility (LEAF) in Lanzhou, Gansu province. (Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn)

One particle milliampere is a huge amount of particles. It's equivalent to about 10 quadrillion particles per second, which is roughly a million times more than the entire population of the world.

Zhao Hongwei, the project's chief scientist and an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said LEAF's advanced capabilities allow it to produce intense, high-charge-state beams of elements ranging from light to heavy.

"LEAF holds broad application prospects in frontier interdisciplinary research fields, such as atomic physics, nuclear astrophysics and nuclear energy materials," Zhao said.

Beyond their application in energy, such as in nuclear power plants, nuclear reactions are fundamental to understanding the evolution of the universe.

"According to prevailing scientific theories, the Big Bang primarily produced hydrogen, helium, and trace amounts of lithium. Elements essential to life, such as carbon and oxygen, as well as heavier elements like iron, were formed through stellar evolution. Understanding these processes is a key focus of nuclear astrophysics," said Tang Xiaodong, a researcher at the Institute of Modern Physics.