50 Years Since
First Beam
On the afternoon of December 15, 1974, a small team of physicists, engineers, and support staff turned on the world’s largest cyclotron and coaxed forth Canada’s first high-energy proton beam.
For fifty years, Canadian and international researchers have used the 4400-tonne particle accelerator to build a world-class subatomic physics program, produce life-saving medical isotopes and empower generations to explore the Universe and build a better world using science.
Join us as we explore fifty years since ‘first beam’ at TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre.
Before the beam
The proposal
The year is 1968. On Canada’s west coast, an inspired team has arrived at a decision that will redefine the country’s science landscape forever: to build the world’s largest cyclotron, a 4400-tonne, 520 million-electron-volt (MeV) particle accelerator that can explore the depths of the subatomic world.
“The first inklings for the tri-university meson facility were themselves a product of three separate elements: a trio of Canadian universities, a novel accelerator concept and an appetite for collaboration within the field of nuclear physics in the early 1960s.”
– Ewart Blackmore
In April 1968, the team’s project plan was accepted. TRIUMF received $19 million (disbursed over several tranches of federal funding) and construction began immediately.
Building the lab
Construction progressed quickly, despite the many unforeseen and unique challenges inherent to building the world’s largest cyclotron.
Many emeriti recall the ‘shimming’ period, which occurred right near the end of construction, as a shining example of the TRIUMF community spirit..
As the beam circled the cyclotron more than 1,200 times, engineers discovered the full machine’s magnetic field didn’t match its model —particles were straying off course.
For six months, the community came together in a daily ritual of “shimming,” adding or removing pieces of steel to the 4,400-tonne magnets to reconfigure the field and, eventually, guide the beam out.
Beam on!
Late in the evening on December 15, 1974, with the completed cyclotron fully energized, Reg Richardson took his seat in the control room to perform the final ‘tuning’ to coax beam from the depths of the accelerator. In just a matter of hours: success!
“(Reg) personally tuned the beam from injection to extraction: a much-enjoyed reward for all the years of planning and administration.”
– Mike Craddock
“Every one of the group leaders were in the control room for hours keeping our systems under surveillance as Reg gradually got the beam circulating to higher and higher energies. He finally got a radiation alarm from the beamline 4 beamspill monitors, followed by a signal moments later – the room exploded in cheers. Exciting day!”
First Beam Group40 Years Later
– Gary Wait
And they're off!
Caption
“By all accounts, work at TRIUMF began immediately, with the 1975 Annual Report noting beam delivered to Experiment 10 in April 1975; the BASQUE experiment receiving beam by August; and the M8 bio-medical beamline beginning studies almost right away. Incredible.”
– Marcello Pavan
“There were no job descriptions; everything was new to everyone and everyone had to be ready to learn anything, from shimming the cyclotron magnet to wire-wrapping the backplanes of the Data General Eclipse computers in the control room.”
– Pat Sparks
As one of just three ‘meson factories’ in the world, TRIUMF quickly became renowned as one of the most in-demand laboratories in international science – a world-unique facility where researchers could wield beams of short-lived particles to explore deeper into the atomic nucleus than ever before.
Using a proton beam from the TRIUMF cyclotron, researchers created secondary beams of particles called muons – ‘lighter’ versions of their heavier proton cousins – which can be implanted into various materials as probes.
As they decay, muons transmit information about the environment they are embedded in, making them an excellent tool for studying the subatomic properties of matter.
“Richard Feynman visited TRIUMF in the winter of 1974. I showed him the beginning of Beamline 1A, which I was building with John Vincent. He asked me what I was going to do with it and I said, “Studying the weak interaction!”.
He shuddered and replied: “At that low an energy?”; while I don’t remember if I answered “Surely you’re joking, Dr. Feynman!“, I should have.”
– Jean-Michel Poutissou
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau officially commissioned TRIUMF’s 520 MeV cyclotron on February 9, 1976, bringing a wider national recognition for the lab and its work at the leading edge of physics and engineering.
“A grad student at the time anticipated the visit of then-Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, to officially open TRIUMF in February of 1976. He climbed up on the the roof of the M20 garage and spelled out in big letters with masking tape:
“Make Love not Mesons.”
– Jess Brewer
Just four years after first beam, TRIUMF researchers discovered a new and unanticipated use for the 520 cyclotron: producing medical isotopes for a cutting-edge medical technology called single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).
The lab’s inaugural commercial agreement (with partner Nordion) was struck in early 1978, enabling TRIUMF to become a significant supplier of critically-needed isotopes like iodine-123 for Canadians.
Factory for Science
By the early 1980s, TRIUMF had become a powerful factory for not only particle physics and materials sciences, but also the burgeoning area of life sciences, earning the laboratory a reputation for punching above its weight and doing much with little.
However, new discoveries in meson science were beginning to hint and an entirely new realm, beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Nimble and eager to continue working at the leading edge of research, the lab was compelled to respond.
A new horizon: KAON
To retain a position at the cutting edge of research, TRIUMF responded to these shifting tides by proposing a massive project of unprecedented ambition in Canada’s history: a 30 GeV facility for the production of Kaons, Antiprotons, Other hadrons and Neutrinos – a ‘KAON’ factory’.
The the 70-acre, $1.4-billion KAON facility intended to produce particle beams 100 to 1000 times stronger than the world’s leading facilities, rivaling the Large Hadron Collider and enabling cutting-edge high-energy physics experiments at the strongest energies ever produced.
A comprehensive KAON proposal was completed and submitted to the federal government in 1985, and studies began in 1988. The reports of the various studies, totalling over 2800 pages, were formally submitted to the governments of Canada and British Columbia in 1990.
“…and the irresistible force that was Erich Vogt plotted to plant Canada even more firmly on the map of particle physics. The plan: an international collaboration to build a billion-dollar machine at UBC which would whip protons around so fast, they would spill out gazillions of kaons…”
– ‘Erich and the KAON Factory’, CBC, May 2 2008
Hope, health, and cyclotrons
Even while setting its sites on a KAON future, TRIUMF continued to explore ways to put Canadian science at the forefront.
In 1982, TRIUMF installed a pneumatic isotope transport line (affectionately known as the ‘rabbit line’) to help provide medical isotopes to the UBC Hospital. Nearly 2.5 KM long and buried meters underground, the rabbit line allows TRIUMF researchers to move small vials of short-lived isotopes at speeds of up to 100km/h, all the way to the Hospital’s neuroscience research unit.
TRIUMF’s Applied Technology Group (ATG) welcomed its first compact cyclotron for medical isotopes, the CP-42, in 1987.
In 1988, construction then began on ATG’s second cyclotron, the first of two ‘TRIUMF-type 30 MeV’ or TR-30 cyclotrons, which continue to operate today.
As the particle and nuclear physics community awaited an answer on KAON, a growing team of nuclear medicine researchers continued explore how to use TRIUMF’s cyclotrons to make isotopes for use in radiotracers for both SPECT and the newly-emerging positron emission tomography (PET) brain scans.
Leveraging TRIUMF’s 520 MeV cyclotron and a suite of compact medical isotope-producing cyclotrons, a small but experienced team began to produce isotopes and tracers like fluorine-18 for both daily diagnostic scans and research purposes.
Across the following four decades, the researchers, engineers, and technicians working to produce radioisotopes at TRIUMF would directly enable thousands of scans, numerous ground-breaking studies, and the establishment of numerous PET programs at Canadian universities and institutions.
Today, the University of British Columbia continues to receive weekly deliveries of radioisotopes for brain research.
Winds of Change
The 90s brought accelerating discoveries in subatomic physics, renewed public interest in science, and paradigm-shifting ‘world wide web’. Against this dynamic backdrop, the lab continued to wait (with hope and trepidation) for a federal on their billion-dollar, history-defining proposal to build the KAON facility.
Waiting for KAON
Despite its dizzying billion-dollar price tag, the proposed KAON facility had largely been met with resounding support from the public, several levels of government, and the global science community.
Buoyed by intense support for KAON from across the provincial business and labour communities, the BC government jumped into the fray in 1990 to match the federal pledge with an additional $236M. Though a change in provincial government led to the province then rescinding this offer, interest remained high; international partners, eager to see a world-class science centre expanded in BC, also committed funding.
“The persistent probing of nature’s building blocks at TRIUMF has already resulted in dozens of technological developments, including medical isotopes, the PET brain scanner, superfast microchips, robotics applications, pion beam cancer therapy, large scale precision tooling and scientific software…”
‘TRIUMF support sought’, North Shore News, January 6 1991
“We have a very compelling case. We have the world ready and waiting.”
– Eric Vogt, in 1990
Turning pause into possibility
While the laboratory community waited for nearly four years, from 1990 to 1994, for a final response on KAON from the federal government, TRIUMF’s leadership continued to lobby government and lead outreach to the public.
Back on-site, TRIUMF’s science program continued to flourish – and expand – into new and exciting directions.
Across the 80s and early 90s, a tectonic shift had continued to ripple through subatomic physics, bringing a renewed focus on rare isotopes as the new frontier in knowledge.
TRIUMF responded to this shifting demand by building the Test Isotope Separator On-Line, or TISOL facility, which operated from 1987-1998.
With TISOL, researchers created RIBs by smashing a particle beam into a target material and directing (and accelerating!) the fragmented subatomic pieces into beams.
TISOL’s first experiment, the ‘Red Giant’ study, saw the lab lead it’s first-ever nuclear astrophysics experiment. This groundbreaking research provided estimates of the production of oxygen-16 in massive stars, enabling more precise predictions of the ultimate fates of massive stars and the production of elements within the cosmos (image credit: CERN Courier).
The Red Giant study became seen as a major inflection point for the lab, a pivot point towards its future in rare isotope science.
“You have to remember, TRIUMF was a meson facility. Now they were showing we can also do rare isotope experiments.
The [Red Giant] experiment was important (…) TISOL showed there were good experiments you could do with this approach.”
– John D’Auria, 2019
“TISOL became the catalyst that led TRIUMF into a new era of physics with the introduction of the ISAC facilities in the late 1990’s”
– SFU Retirees Association, 2016
To further expand its well-established medical isotope capabilities, TRIUMF installed its third cyclotron in 1993: a compact 13 MeV, ‘TR’ (TRIUMF)-type cyclotron developed under an agreement with BC-based EBCO – the same company that helped construct TRIUMF’s 520 MeV cyclotron.
Elsewhere, TRIUMF muSR researchers contributed to the study and characterization of buckminsterfullerene, or ‘buckyballs’, soccer ball-shaped molecules of carbon that gripped public attention in the 90s.
These expansions into new capabilities – rare isotopes, medical isotopes, exploration of new avenues proved prescient. In 1994, the federal government delivered harrowing blow to the future of TRIUMF: the KAON proposal would not be funded.
TRIUMF’s federal funding agreement collapsed, and the lab moved to month-by-month transfer payments, casting a deep shadow on the fate of the laboratory.
“An attempt was made to upgrade the facility, to improve its production capabilities at higher energy, and it was called KAON. But the price tag proved too high for Canada.
However, scientists at the lab pulled a switcheroo, a major change in focus (…) and learned how to use the 500 MeV intense proton beam to make rare isotopes.”
– John D’Auria, 2019
In 1993, TRIUMF installed its third cyclotron: a compact 13 MeV, ‘TR’ (TRIUMF)-type cyclotron developed in the early 1990s in a technology transfer agreement with BC-based EBCO, the company that helped construct TRIUMF’s 520 MeV cyclotron
Isotopes, Accelerated
The world entered the year 2000 with uncertainty about the future of global technology, but TRIUMF’s community was focused on shaping a different kind of future, one grounded in discovery and precision.
In 2000, TRIUMF accelerates its first stable beam from ISAC-I and finalizes approvals for the construction of ISAC-II, ushering in a new era in subatomic physics in Canada.
At the same time, TRIUMF launches its superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) program, which serves to eventually position TRIUMF (and Canada) as a major leader in the development of particle accelerators – including ISAC-I’s newly designed heavy ion linac.
“….there seems to be broad agreement that the lab’s main thrust must be to exploit the newly completed ISAC facilities as fully as possible…”
– Jean-Michel Poutissou (CERN Courier, Jan 2003)
In 2001, two pioneering experiments—DRAGON (the Detector of Recoils And Gammas Of Nuclear Reactions) and TUDA (TRIUMF UK Detector Array) were commissioned within the ISAC-I hall.
With a beam of rare radioactive ions, DRAGON begins the world‑first measurement of stellar proton capture reactions — simulating how elements formed in explosive stellar environments. Meanwhile, TUDA offers precision insight into charged‑particle reaction pathways critical to models of nova nucleosynthesis.
Across the early 2000s, TRIUMF’s Centre for Molecular and Materials Science (CMMS) began producing spin-polarized beta-emitting isotopes, such as ¹⁸Li and ³¹Mg, using the β-NMR (beta-detected nuclear magnetic resonance) facility.
Today, these isotopes serve as highly sensitive probes for examining the local electronic and magnetic properties of surfaces and interfaces – for instance, in complex quantum materials or novel battery systems.
The ISAC-II building opened in 2003, further solidifying the laboratory as a global leader in isotope science. The laser ion source would come online shortly after, enabling a comprehensive library of rare isotope beams for ISAC experiments.
2003 marked a major year for TRIUMF’s new-found focus on international collaborations, with the laboratory’s accelerator community delivering superconducting magnets to CERN for the Large Hadron Collider. TRIUMF also received the first CPUs for its ATLAS Tier-1 data centre — key contributions to one of the most ambitious scientific efforts of all time.
In 2005, TRIUMF’s Proton Therapy Centre treats its 100th ocular melanoma patient.
In 2007, TRIUMF researchers achieve the first mass measurement of ¹¹Li, the shortest-lived and lightest ion ever captured in a Penning trap.
The results opened new windows into the structure of exotic nuclei and how short-lived isotopes enable stars to burn, grow, and die.
Forging Canada's Future in Isotopes
Throughout the 2010s, a decade shaped by shifting global priorities in health, energy, and innovation, TRIUMF focused on strengthening its role as a national hub for accelerator and isotope science. The lab initiated the ambitious ARIEL and IAMI facilities, and expanded programs for medical isotope production and development.
Hello, ARIEL!
To secure Canada’s future as a global science leader, the lab’s 2010–2015 Five-Year Plan set an ambitious course to build a world-leading isotope research facility: the Advanced Rare Isotope Laboratory (ARIEL).
Fully realized, ARIEL is designed to triple TRIUMF’s rare-isotope beam output, unlocking new avenues in subatomic physics, nuclear astrophysics, medical isotopes, and materials science.
In the final weeks of 2011, TRIUMF’s 520 MeV cyclotron and ISAC facility set a world record for delivering the most intense beams onto an actinide target for the production of isotopes.
ARTMS (Alternative Radioisotope Technologies for Medical Science) was founded by a group of TRIUMF scientists, including Dr. Paul Schaffer, in 2013 to tackle major shortages in the most commonly-used medical isotope, technetium-99m. ARTMS remains a major TRIUMF success story, providing key support to the national isotope supply.
In 2014, TRIUMF introduced the First Year Summer Research Experience award, or FYSRE, honouring TRIUMF’s fourth Director Dr. Erich Vogt (1929-2014), one of the most distinguished Canadian nuclear physicists of his generation. As a UBC professor, Vogt (right, leaping over an early TRIUMF construction line) was also a co-founder of TRIUMF.
“FYSRE changed everything for me. I felt so lucky to have this amazing community of scientists to learn from, and the opportunity to participate in actual research projects.”
– Jenny Zhu, former FYSRE
In 2016, TRIUMF contributors to the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) announced the first ever measurement on the optical spectrum of an antihydrogen atom, paving the way for new studies to shine a light on antimatter’s otherworldly characteristics.
“Laser measurement on antimatter atoms has been a dream in the field for decades!”
– Makoto Fujiwara
Beginning in 2017, TRIUMF’s Tier-1 centre began transitioning to a new state-of-the-art facility at Simon Fraser University. Today, under the careful eye of TRIUMF personnel, the centre receives and stores vast amounts of data from the ATLAS detector.
TRIUMF launched its commercialization arm, TRIUMF Innovations, in 2017. Since its inception, the TRIUMF Innovations team has spun off five companies, stewarded TRIUMF’s critical industry relationships, and co-led the development of the Canadian Medical Isotope Ecosystem (CMIE).
Hello, IAMI
Across the mid-2010s, TRIUMF embarked on a multi-year effort to design, construct, and commission the Institute for Advanced Medical Isotopes (IAMI), a state-of-the-art facility for research into next-generation medical isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals.
Located on TRIUMF’s campus, IAMI comprises an integrated series of labs and a TR-24 medical cyclotron, one of the most technologically advanced commercial cyclotrons in the world.
Prime Minister Trudeau visited TRIUMF in 2018 to announce $10.23 million in funding for IAMI. TRIUMF presented Prime Minister Trudeau with a framed image of his father, former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, from the day he helped commission TRIUMF in 1976.
Slated for first operations in 2026, IAMI will significantly enhance BC (and Canada’s) ability to produce not only critically-needed medical isotopes like technetium-225, but also explore new and promising isotopes that can cure diseases directly – including actinium-225.
“Many isotopes emit alpha particles, but they leave behind poisonous byproducts, or can’t be attached to a drug. Actinium-225 is the Goldilocks isotope. It’s just right – except for one thing..”
– Caterina Ramogida
Dubbed the “World’s Rarest Drug”, actinium-225 shows tremendous promise for revolutionizing treatment for cancer and other diseases – but it cannot be produced fast enough to meet demand.
With IAMI, TRIUMF is creating a national epicentre for production, research, and development of actinium-225 – as well as other emerging medical isotopes.
After decades of care, TRIUMF’s proton therapy centre quietly ceased clinical operations in 2018, as patients gained access to dedicated facilities across North America.
In its time, the Centre served as a place of hope and healing. Its staff received countless well-wishes, thank-you notes, and cards – small, heartfelt reminders of lives touched (and saved) by their work.
“To all who have been involved in the Proton Therapy Centre: words are inadequate for sharing my gratitude for your kindness and your compassion. You will forever be remembered in our hearts.”
– Anonymous
In 2018, TRIUMF announces major federal funding to build five sophisticated ‘crab cavities’ as part of a Canada’s contribution to upgrade the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most-powerful subatomic research tool.
“Thanks to TRIUMF’s ambitious international partnerships, Canadian researchers have been at the centre of some of the most important global research projects.”
– The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science
TRIUMF’s Applied Technology Group, which wields a suite of cyclotrons to produce nearly 2 million patient doses of critically-needed medical isotopes annually, celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2019.
“In our 50 years as a premier physics lab, TRIUMF has developed incredible expertise for trying to answer some of the most important questions about the universe. What is also remarkable is it’s sustained contribution, across more than 40 years, to the development and production of critical and life-saving medical isotopes.”
– Former ATG Cyclotron Operations Group Leader Gabriel Cojocaru
2020s
National Asset, Global Impact
In the early 2020s, as the world endured uncertainty and turmoil caused by the COVID pandemic and other major global challenges, TRIUMF’s community stood steady. While continuing its pursuit of scientific discovery, the lab rose to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world, by bolstering national healthcare systems, advancing research security, and training the next generation of STEM leaders.
In early 2020, shortly after the official declaration of the global pandemic, TRIUMF co-led an international collaboration to design and build a respirator that could be deployed to assist in COVID treatment.
The collaboration – mainly dark matter experimenters – leveraged world-leading expertise in gas flow and exchange systems.
As much of the world socially-distanced, TRIUMF’s cyclotron operations teams continued their essential on-site work in cramped control rooms and cyclotron vaults to produce medical isotopes necessary for PET scans for cancer patients, Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons disease, and more.
“It is truly a privilege to work alongside – at a safe distance! – our many operators and support teams. I am very proud of how quickly and effectively my operators adapted to the ever-changing requirements COVID 19 has brought about.”
– Violeta Toma, Accelerator Operations Manager
In 2023, the TRIUMF-built ‘ALPHA-g’ antimatter gravity detector, installed at CERN, enables the first every measurement of the effect of gravity on antimatter.
