The National Science and Technology Council is considering shuttering the three-decades-old Taiwan Light Source (TLS) program and expanding the Taiwan Photon Source (TPS) project from 14 storage rings to 25 to facilitate the government’s tech diplomacy policy, an official said on Saturday.
The council is tasked with operating the TLS and TPS programs, which are responsible for producing synchrotron radiation that is often used by the semiconductor, materials science, pharmaceutical, astronomy and green energy sectors, National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center Deputy Director Wei Te-hsin (魏德新) said.
Scientists can use the range of synchrotron radiation wavelengths, which include infrared, visible light, ultraviolet rays and X-rays to atomic and nano-scale, to conduct research, Wei added.
Photo courtesy of the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center
When initiated 30 years ago, the light source program was a third-generation synchrotron accelerator, while the TPS system, activated in 2016, is still considered one of the more powerful synchrotron accelerators in the world.
The council is considering decommissioning the TLS program as it is dated, and would be gradually expanding the TPS program until it has 25 storage rings, Wei said.
There are about 70 synchrotron accelerators across different countries, which is a clear indicator of a country’s technological development, he said, adding the open interaction between synchrotron accelerator centers would benefit researchers worldwide.
Taiwan has a special division at Japan’s synchrotron accelerator SPring-8 and at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, granting Taiwan priority access to the facilities for experiments, he said.
The Max Planck Institutes in Germany have been working with Taiwan to build an end station, and in light of Japan’s SPring-8 producing one of the highest brightness sources of X-rays worldwide, Taiwan’s centers are also considering upgrades, the council said.
Former National Science and Technology Council deputy minister Chen Tzong-chyuan (陳宗權) said the number of Science Citation Index articles published in international journals using the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center’s synchrotron accelerator increased to 602 last year, up from 413 in 2019.
The average influence index of these articles has also increased by 11.51 last year, up from 7.39 in 2019, he added.
Upgrades to the synchrotron accelerator would help develop Taiwan’s five “trusted industries,” namely semiconductors, next-generation communication, artificial intelligence, military engineering and surveillance technologies, he said.
The upgrade would also benefit other policies, such as improving Taiwan’s general health and reducing carbon emissions, while promoting the application of synchrotron technology in semiconductors, biomedicine and next-generation green power generation, he added.
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