What has the LHC done for us?

The science and engineering of the LHC seems extremely remote from the world most of us are familiar with, but the LHC and its predecessors do not just benefit physicists. UK society and industry benefit from many technology spin-offs and commercial contracts.

Technology transfer (spin offs).
Many technologies developed for use at CERN find their way into everyday use – the most famous is the World Wide Web, developed by Sir Tim Berners Lee while he was working at CERN.

Oxford Positron Systems Ltd (founded by a former CERN physicist) manufactures High Density Avalanche Chambers (HIDAC) that are used in scanning and imaging small animals.

Immense Ltd have developed software that allows people to search for on-line pictures, based on recognising the contents of the image.

GEANT4  is software that CERN developed to simulate, and optimise, the performance of particle detectors. It has subsequently found uses in medicine and the space industry.

The medipix chip was developed at CERN for use in particle detectors. It is highly sensitive and has found applications in other imaging and detection systems, for example in medical imaging where greater sensitivity means lower doses/reduced exposure times of radiation can be used.

Contracts.
During construction of the LHC CERN spent around £3.4B (approximately 40% of its budget) on industrial contracts, mainly within the 20 Member States. On average the UK wins about £12M of contracts a year. These cover a huge range of activities, from computing, electronics and vacuum technology to cleaning and civil engineering projects.

Current contract opportunities can be found on the STFC website and details for the e-tendering process are on the CERN website.

Recently, several UK companies have won awards for the quality of their work on CERN projects. Every year the CMS Collaboration holds an award ceremony, giving Gold Awards to companies with distinguished technical performance and Crystal Awards to those that have developed new designs or explored novel technologies.

Qudos Technology (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) was awarded a Gold Award in 2007 for the prompt design, construction and commissioning of the large clean-room for the Tracker Integration Facility (TIF), exceeding the required specifications while meeting a very demanding schedule.

TM Engineers received a Gold Award in 2006 for the manufacture of the electromagnetic calorimeter endcap support structures. 
 
eXception EMS was awarded a Gold Award in 2006 for manufacture of the tracker front-end drivers, an electronic system designed and developed at RAL.