Basic and Applied Research Programs

The Madison Accelerator Laboratory (MAL) on the campus of James Madison University is a unique and unconventional bremsstrahlung research facility that features a repurposed medical electron linear accelerator (linac) that can provide both bremsstrahlung photon beams and electron beams.

The linac at MAL is used mainly for basic research, but it is also used for applications, and it can also be used for undergraduate instruction.

• Basic research is presently being conducted in the field of Nuclear Astrophysics.
• A few applications are being developed such as
  • Archaeometry with Photon Activation Analysis
    
  • Evaluation of Oxides and Au-Supported Oxides as Potential Radiosensitizer Nanomaterials 
  • Studies of X-Ray Radiation Enhancing and Radioluminescence of Novel Metals and Lanthanide-Based Nanocomposites 
  • Non-Destructive Electron Beam Diagnostics

Other applications may be developed in response to specific needs of potential users.

NOTE: Click on the left-hand side image for more details on our research program at the MAL linac facility.

MAL also features an X-ray source equipped with adequate imaging software that provides both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) radiographs, thus enabling us to view the internal form of a broad set of objects. 

Digital radiographs are grayscale images that represent areas of high-absorption radiation as whiter and areas of low-absorption radiation as darker. Traditional radiography is obtained with a fixed-angle X-ray source that produces a 2D radiograph. At MAL, we are using Digitome software that applies the same imaging technique but with X-rays generated from multiple angles to create a volumetric (3D) image reconstruction of an object. Typically 8 to 16 images at different angles are required to allow the software to produce a volumetric radiograph.

Presently, the objects being investigated at the MAL X-ray imaging facility come primarily from the Madison Art Collection & Lisanby Museum at JMU and from Virginia Department of Historic Resources in Richmond, Virginia.

NOTE: Click on the left-hand side image for more details on our research program at the MAL linac facility.