Introduction

Given government UK approval in 1962, NINA was a 70.19m, 4 GeV electron Synchrotron

Synchrotron

A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator in which the magnetic field and the electric field are carefully synchronised with the travelling particle beam. The proton synchrotron was originally conceived by Sir Marcus Oliphant...

 built in 1964 at the Daresbury Laboratory

Daresbury Laboratory

Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory near Daresbury in Cheshire, England, which began operations in 1962 and was officially opened on 16 June 1967 as the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory by the then Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Harold Wilson...

 site in Cheshire, England to study particle physics. This was the first facility at this site and gave birth to the second national laboratory (after Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council . It is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom...

).

Along with other particle physics accelerators, scientists had been using the Synchrotron radiation

Synchrotron radiation

The electromagnetic radiation emitted when charged particles are accelerated radially is called synchrotron radiation. It is produced in synchrotrons using bending magnets, undulators and/or wigglers...

 produced by NINA for its unique properties. By 1975 over 50 scientists with affiliations to more than 16 institutions were at work on NINA exploiting this by product of the particle accelerator. This led to the conversion of the NINA ring into a dedicated source of synchrotron radiation at a cost of £3M at 1974 prices. The particle physics was to be exported to CERN

CERN

The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...

, at the time a proposed 400 GeV machine.

Whilst the majority of NINA was reused onsite for the new SRS, some parts were repurposed at other facilities, including the 90 ton Choke which became a key part of the operation of the ISIS neutron source

ISIS neutron source

ISIS is a pulsed neutron and muon source. It is situated at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom and is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council...

at the Rutherford Appleton Lab.

Specifications

Design Energy was 4 GeV and was reached in 1966
By the time NINA was closed it had been upgraded to 6GeV.
NINA contained 40 electro magnets
Initial acceleration was performed by a 40MeV linac in a tunnel outside the ring