The external members of the ad hoc Review were selected to provide broad expertise in the materials sciences and related disciplines but also to represent national laboratories, industrial and academic institutions as well as many regions of the USA. The Review held three publically announced and geographically distributed meetings: the first was held in Washington, D.C. on October 30, 1984, the second in Berkeley, CA, on December 12, 1984, and the last in Chicago, Illinois, on January 25-26, 1985. This provided the opportunity for participation by the public across the nation. Appendix D. contains the agenda of these meetings. An informal final meeting was held in Washington on April 30, 1985, for the purpose of clearing up some remaining questions and finishing the draft report to be presented to the Energy Research Advisory Board on May 2, 1985.

NRC panels and surveys, DOE topical workshops and planning studies and other sources have produced more than a dozen reports which concern the MMF in the last few years. Consequently, much of the information pertinent to the Review was read by the members. See Section VI for the bibliography of reports used in this review. The first meeting was devoted to determining the response other Federal agencies expected to make to the MMF Report. Briefings on the applications of neutron research and synchrotron radiation research were given in the first and the second meetings. Speakers on neutron research and synchrotron radiation research were carefully chosen to be experts but with minimal institutional stock in the MMF Report recommendations. Before the second meeting, all of the DOE Laboratories were polled for their thoughts on the MMF Report recommendations in regard to their mission, their use of the MMF, and on the statistics of operation and use of any MMF located at their laboratory. (These statistics are presented in summary form in Appendix E.) The second, third, and the informal final meetings contained briefings from the DOE laboratories on these questions and their plans involving new MMF.

The Review, while responding to the charges outlined in II., organized its thoughts around some managerial issues and the recommendations of the MMF Report. Its findings and recommended DOE actions are presented below. From the outset we will assume a familiarity with the MMF Report and the information in its references. For easy reference, Appendix A contains the executive summary of the Report. We suggest a careful reading of the first and second major sections, MATERIALS RESEARCH: FACILITIES AND MODES and MAJOR MATERIALS FACILITIES; SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, respectively. They form an excellent and succinct background for the following discussion. Here we will provide only information on developments since the writing of the MMF Report and give supplementary information important to the concerns of the Department. We believe our conclusions and recommendations are appropriate for the Department in response to its mission and the nation's needs.

From briefings and other information available to us, we find that a forefront capability in materials research is vital for our energy production and usage, our national defense programs, and for a successful economic future which must necessarily be based on 'high technologies'. By the end of our fact-finding meetings, we unanimously agreed on our major conclusion--the prerequisites and scientific priorities set in the MMF Report are generally consistent with the needs of the DOE missions and in the best interest of the nation. The MMF Report is a well-balanced assessment of the national needs and carefully draws its scientific priorities commensurate with these needs. Our next charge was to examine the urgency and sequence of DOE actions and cost scenarios.

We will present our views on the necessary costs to construct the array of major new facilities and new capabilities at existing facilities which have been recommended by the MMF Report and this Review in Section V. We find that a significant investment of additional resources will be required to provide the nation's scientists and engineers with the recommended modern facilities for forefront materials research in the next years and into the future decade. A conservative balanced overall plan based on the priorities of the MMF Report is required to secure the mutual agreement and support of Congress, the Executive Branch and the scientific community on the sequence and rate of expenditures. This plan must be responsive to new information and technological innovations as they become available.

The

The Department is presently responsible for the maintenance and operation of most of the major research facilities in the physical sciences (Ref. 2). This statement also holds for the MMF subset (Ref. 3 and 4). excellent capabilities of both the Department and the DOE laboratories to administer, develop, and construct major research facilities strongly support the conclusion that the DOE must play a leading role in implementing the overall MMF plan.

During the review, a few observations were made that have apparently not been widely recognized. The first is that the MMF are not of the same

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character as other 'Big Science' facilities. The general mode of utilization is that a user initiates a research program in a home laboratory and uses the MMF when special capabilities unavailable in the home laboratory are needed. In this sense the MMF are not 'large-scale science' but instead play host to many small-scale projects. For example, the National Synchrotron Light Source will support nearly 100 simultaneous experiments when it is fully operational. It is interesting that its operating budget is actually much less than that required to operate enough rotating anode X-ray sources to produce the same integrated flux of X-rays, yet its capabilities are far greater due to the special characteristics of its X-ray emissions, such as the polarization and the very small divergence. It is, however, important to recognize the vital role of the home laboratory, where much of materials science is developed and young scientists are being trained. We find that it is essential to maintain the diversity of the home laboratories as the wellspring of research on materials and, just as importantly, the source of young scientists.

It was also noted that support of operations of the extant MMF from the DOE Division of Materials Sciences (DMS) is increasing but leveling off near one-fifth of its budget--a point of concern in reference 5 and, indirectly, in the MMF Report. However, the MMF operations portion of the total national budget for materials research and development and the related disciplines is not more than 5 percent. [We arrive at this number by noting that the DMS budget is only about one-third of the total materials research and development budget in the Department and that the Department's budget is only about one-third of the total national budget for materials research and development. Accounting for the utilization of the MMF by the related disciplines and the MMF supported by other agencies, the portion remains less than 5 percent.] Even large increases, say by 40 percent in the operations costs of the MMF could be balanced in the sense of the first prerequisite of the MMF Report by an additional coordinated 2 percent [40 percent of 5 percent] increase in the total national materials research budget. It is important that this small but not insignificant increase be assured by a strong coordination between the Department, other funding agencies, and Congress.

However, the increasing portion of the DOE Division of Materials Sciences budget for MMF is of special concern to the DOE (Ref. 5) and to those supported by that Division. Our poll of the DOE laboratories indicates that those laboratories that host a MMF have suffered reductions in the components of their materials research budgets not specifically associated with the MMFs. This has resulted in a shift of the mission of several laboratories from materials-related research to facility operation. This reduction in DOE materials research is detrimental to the mission of the Department. To maintain the vitality of the DOE materials effort, a budget strategy must be developed which removes this adverse effect. However, we do not advocate the most obvious solution, that MMF construction and support become an independent item in the DOE budget because of the concomitant decrease in flexibility to meet unanticipated needs.

50-721 0-85--21

We also studied the channels of coordination and advice to the DOE Division of Materials Sciences. At the top level, coordination with other federal agencies involved in materials research and development is provided by the Committee on Materials, (COMAT) presently chaired by Dr. J. McTague of OSTP. Strong interagency coordination at the program level for materials science is done through the Interagency Materials Group, a sub-group of COMAT, other interagency committees on special topics, and direct personal contact. Coordination within the Department is accomplished primarily through the Energy Materials Coordinating Committee. The Division of Materials Sciences has a Council on Materials Sciences which provides information on technical emphasis through ad hoc panel meetings and assists the Division in establishing research priorities and user facilities policy. The majority of information about facilities is obtained by the Division through ad hoc expert groups and National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences committees and studies. An example of the latter is the MMF study itself. There are two standing NRC/NAS groups which provide important information to the Division; the National Materials Advisory Board and the Solid State Sciences Committee. The latter of these has organized several studies on specific needs for MMF, a few of which are listed in the references. This plethora of coordination and advisory mechanisms illustrates the lack of organizational cohesiveness for the Federal Government's effort in the full field of materials research. Workers in materials science are represented by several professional societies. There is no one body which can speak for even a majority of interests of the materials and materials-related scientists and engineers. We believe the DOE must continue to maintain strong inter- and intradepartment coordination and foster the development of a shared advisory and decision-making process. The process must be developed to at least adequately represent the more basic side of materials research namely, materials science, in the United States: it must be capable of reaching consensus on priorities within the concerned scientific community, the federal agencies, and Congress. The recent move toward joint endeavors by the two groups in the NKC/NAS is laudatory--perhaps the first step toward the goal we have set here.

We found in our meeting with representatives from other federal agencies responsible for funding of materials sciences and the related disciplines which utilize the MMF that they have limited interest in constructing future MMF. It should, however, be noted that the Department of Commerce enthusiastically supports its reactor and the planned upgrade. The Department of Commerce also supports its Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility (SURF-II) which was not the object of a recommendation of the MMF Report.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is responsible for the Wisconsin Synchrotron Radiation Center (SRC) with its two rings, the older 240 MeV Tantulus and the 800 MeV Aladdin, which is in a commissioning stage. The NSF is responsible for the Nation's only very high magnetic field facility, the Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and expects to respond to the MMF recommendations concerning this MMF. The NSF also expressed an interest in the initial site

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independent exploratory design and development associated with the 6 GeV synchrotron source (see Appendix F). The NSF also supports the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), a facility parasitic on the 5.5 GeV Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESK) facility which was not the object of a recommendation in the MMF report.

There are formal and informal cooperative programs at the DOE MMF with other countries. The only formal programs are arrangements with the Japanese Atomic Energy Research Institute and the University of Tokyo's Institute of Solid State Physics with Brookhaven and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. Two state-of-the-art neutron spectrometers are being built with Japanese funds in exchange for the use of these and other spectrometers on the High Flux Beam Reactor (BNL) and the High Flux Isotope Reactor (ORNL). Appendix E contains a tabulation illustrating the utilization of these, and other DOE user facilities by foreign scientists. The majority of these utilizations are informal and almost always involve long-term basic science in collaboration with American workers. Though we encourage specific international cooperative research and instrument/technique development efforts of the type described above, we do not believe MMF construction or upgrades should be accomplished by international cooperation. The recommendations in this report refer to MMF important to U. S. industry and, if present DOE policy is followed, are available on a full reimbursement basis for industrial proprietary work. This commercial utilization is increasing and we believe it will continue to increase. Accessibility to state-of-the-art MMF by American industrial concerns improves the nation's international marketplace competitiveness. We believe that international cooperative facilities would inhibit access to U.S. industrial workers and especially for proprietary use if the facilities are not located in North America.

From our poll of the DOE laboratories, we found that they generally strongly supported the MMF Report recommendations in terms of the DOE missions and of each laboratory's own missions.

From these findings we have reached the following general conclusions and recommendations.

i.

ii.

The DOE has vital needs for state-of-the-art neutron and photon facilities for materials research and research in related scientific disciplines. These needs reflect DOE mission responsibilities for research related to energy and to national defense.

The DOE already has a central role in providing such facilities, primarily through its national laboratories due to their expertise in the design, construction, and operation of large accelerator and reactor facilities for national programs. This central role extends beyond the energy mission of DOE to include the nation's broad science and technology base. Scientists and engineers from