AQUILA Facility Hosts First Transnational Access Visit

The Atomki-Queen’s University Ice Laboratory for Astrochemistry (AQUILA) facility, which was established at the ECR Ion Source (ECRIS) Laboratory at Atomki, Debrecen with Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) Joint Research Activity (JRA) funding, is hosting its first ever Transnational Access (TA) visit this week.

The AQUILA facility consists of a Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) compatible chamber containing a substrate on which astrophysical ice analogues can be grown at cryogenic temperatures (≥20K). These ice analogues are exposed to ion irradiation, and the resultant chemical or physical changes in the ice due to radiation are monitored using mid-infrared spectroscopy. Through the Europlanet 2024 RI TA programme, international researchers can visit the AQUILA facility in Debrecen to run experiments to support their work.

The first visit has been by Grace Richards, a PhD student at the Open University, whose successful TA application is for a project that seeks to understand the surface radiation chemistry on Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn.

Find out more about AQUILA and the Europlanet 2024 RI TA programme.