• STAR – stands for Small Tandem for Applied Research
• The STAR facility is a modern dedicated accelerator for nuclear based isotopic and elemental analyses.
• The STAR facility significantly improves national scientific research program infrastructure for scientific studies related to the environment, archaeology, heritage, biology and materials science, particularly with Australian universities.
• Total project costs were $3.2 million. This included buildings, installation and commissioning. The funding was collaborative, made up of $0.6M from the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE), $1.1M from ANSTO, $1M from the Australian Research Council and $0.5M from individual universities.
• The $0.5 million from individual universities was broken up as follows: Wollongong ($100,000), Sydney ($77,000), Monash ($44,000), New South Wales ($35,000) , Australian National ($30,000), RMIT ($30,000) New England ($25,000), La Trobe ($19,000), James Cook ($15,000), Macquarie ($15,000),Queensland ($12,000), University of Technology, Sydney ($12,000), Western Australia ($11,100), Flinders ($10,000), Newcastle ($10,000), University of Adelaide ($10,000), Southern Cross ($10,000), Auckland ($10,000), Melbourne ($8,000), (Murdoch ($6,000), Curtin ($5,000), Western Sydney ($5,000 Edith Cowan ($4,000), Murdoch ($6,000), Canberra ($3,000), South Australia ($3,000), Victoria ($2,000) and Northern Territory ($1,000).
• Before STAR arrived, the existing accelerator-based research programs were carried out on two ANSTO accelerators, a 35-year old Van de Graaff accelerator and the ANTARES (Australian National Tandem Accelerator for Applied Research) tandem accelerator. STAR replaces the old Van de Graaff, which is based on obsolete technology and requires high maintenance and labour.
• Australian researchers and their collaborators have used the old Van de Graaff for ion beam analysis (IBA) since 1964. Since 1967, research on the accelerator facilities has produced 35 PhD and eight MSc theses through AINSE, and trained numerous MSc and Honours students from most universities throughout Australia.
• Since 1976, over 700 journal and conference research publications in interdisciplinary studies based on IBA covering a broad range of scientific disciplines have been produced in collaboration with Australian universities.
• STAR is a two million volt tandem accelerator modern compact and computerised facility. It has been designed specifically with state-of-the-art capability for dual functionality, providing both IBA and high-throughput and high-precision accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon analysis.
• Specifications for the accelerator were finalised in June 2000 and distributed worldwide. Two companies became the clear competitors to build STAR: National Electrostatics Corporation in the United States and High Voltage Engineering (HVE) in Europe. With the rising US dollar and the more stable Dutch guilder, HVE won the tender.
• STAR was shipped from The Netherlands on 7 September 2002, and delivered to ANSTO in three large shipping containers on 23 October 2002.
• STAR was fully commissioned, meeting all IBA and radiocarbon AMS acceptance tests, on 31 July 2004, providing high energy proton and helium beams, and radiocarbon AMS measurements with 0.35% precision. It more than met the original specifications requested by ANSTO scientists.
• In December 2004, ANSTO constructed, tested and commissioned two new additional IBA beamlines on STAR for X-ray and nuclear reaction studies related to the environment, archaeology, heritage, biology and materials science.
• The STAR accelerator joins a select family of other radiocarbon facilities around the world. It will provide access for Australian scientists to a radiocarbon dating facility for high-precision sample analyses from diverse natural materials such as lake sediments, rock-art paintings, tree-rings, ice-cores, corals, soils and air to better understand our changing environment, landscape and climate in the southern hemisphere.
The types of ANSTO research projects that will use STAR are as follows:
1. Understanding Australian and Asian archaeological and cultural history
• Aboriginal rock art dating in Queensland and the Northern Territory
• Migration and time of entry of indigenous Australians over the past 60,000 years
• Migration of Pacific islanders across the Pacific (from Galapagos to the Torres Strait islands)
during the past 15,000 years
• Archaeological and environmental evidence for rise and fall of the Angkor Kingdom in
Cambodia from the 9th to the 14th Century.
2. Preserving our environment and landscape
• Study of Australian estuarine lakes and rivers channels over the past 20,000 years by radiocarbon dating sediments
• Sustainability and growth of coral reef islands in the Torres Strait
• Ocean circulation variations by tracing bomb pulse radiocarbon in the southern Pacific Ocean
3. Learning about past climate change in the southern hemisphere to better predict future climatic changes
• Measuring past variations in atmospheric circulation and radiocarbon time calibration using
ancient tree-rings from Huon pine in Tasmania that are 8-12 thousand years old
• Study of the intensity and variations in changes in the El-Niño patterns over the past 5,000
years, using 14C measured in banded coral heads from Cocos Island (Indian Ocean) and
Christmas Island (Pacific Ocean)
• Dating coastal ocean sediments near Peru to study El Niño variations during the last global
glacial period between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago
• Measuring radiocarbon in methane gas extracted from Antarctic ice cores to estimate the rate
of increase of greenhouse methane from pre-industrial times to today.
4. A sustainable environment for Australia
• Continuous monitoring of air quality in Australian cities by measuring the elemental
composition of fine particulates in air samples using ion beam analysis and nuclear detection
techniques
• Identifying the main sources, quantity and composition of fine particulates in air, thereby
contributing to the establishment of effective pollution reduction strategies, understanding
seasonal variations and effect of bushfires
• Reduction of heavy metal contamination in soils by analysing the special concentration
characteristics of heavy metal hyper-accumulating plants.
5. Understanding our past
• Measuring the elemental composition of obsidian artifacts used by early humans in the Asia-
Pacific region to study human migrations and cultural change
• Detailed statistical analyses of the elemental distributions in large number of samples to map
early trading routes in the western Pacific and Russia.
6. Helping to preserve Australian endangered species
• Measuring the metabolic rate of endangered Honey Possums and small lizards using the
nuclear reaction analysis technique.