IFA

IFA (Institutul de Fizică Atomică, the Institute of Atomic Physics) at Măgurele, near Bucharest, was set up in 1956 from the Academy’s Institute of Physics, founded in 1949 [1]. Besides nuclear physics it developed nuclear electronics, magnetometers and NMR and EPR spectrometers, made in its microproduction workshops and, from 1977, at FAN [1].

History

In 1973 IFA was merged, with other physics research and teaching units, into the Central Institute of Physics (ICEFIZ) of the State Committee for Nuclear Energy (CSEN) [1]. Decree 6/1977 reorganised ICEFIZ into several institutes – among them the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN), which took over nuclear research and production – and the Nuclear Equipment Factory, FAN; outside Bucharest it also included ITIM Cluj-Napoca, the Centre for Technical Physics in Iași, IRNE Pitești and Uzina G at Râmnicu Vâlcea [1]. In January 1990 IFA was re-established as a public institution directly under the government; in 1996 it was split into today’s national research institutes, six of them at Măgurele (IFIN-HH, INFLPR, IGSS, IFTM, INFP and IOEL), and from 1999 it coordinated Romania’s part in the European controlled fusion programme under its EURATOM association [1].

Nuclear electronics

By 1960 IFA had a nuclear electronics laboratory; its electronic design team developed radiometry instruments that went into production at FAN, modular instruments in the NIM standard for analogue nuclear spectrometry and, after 1973, in the CAMAC standard for digital systems [1]. Its NIM modules included the NIM 1141, NIM 1112, NIM 1113, NIM 1115, NIM 1117, NIM 1122, NIM 1092, NIM 1052 [1]. CAMAC modules (computer interfaces for the PDP-11, Coral and Felix M18, analogue-to-digital converters, counters, multiplexers) went into systems for laser physics, for automating the Bucharest railway marshalling yard and for monitoring the Vidraru dam [1]. IFIN also designed the AREMI-78 pulsed NMR spectrometer [1].

After 1983 IFIN and FAN assimilated more than 40 types of dosimetry and radiation monitoring equipment for units 1 and 2 of the Cernavodă nuclear power plant, such as the DIGAMAT multi-sample installation, made with Romanian components to nuclear quality requirements, with the design reviewed by specialists of AECL (Canada); the most complex was a high-resolution gamma spectrometry chain built around the MC-84 multichannel analyser [1]. Chapter II of the same book counts about 30 types of measuring and control instruments designed and made by IFA for Cernavodă [2]. The AMCT-500 transportable multichannel analyser was designed in 1987 [1].

After 1990 IFIN built the WILLI electromagnetic calorimeter (proposed in 1991 as a complement to the KASCADE cosmic-ray project at Karlsruhe), designed integrated circuits (ASICs) for the TRD detector of the ALICE experiment at CERN and for the CBM experiment at FAIR, took part in the CERN data-acquisition projects RD-11 and RD-13 and, with the University of Cologne, developed miniature charge-sensitive preamplifiers fitted from 1998 to the MINIBALL detector array at CERN’s REX-ISOLDE [1].

Magnetometry

IFA’s radiospectroscopy and electronic design sections developed NMR and EPR spectrographs; in 1972–1984 FAN made 12 ART-5 and 15 ART-6 EPR spectrometers for university and industrial physical chemistry laboratories, as well as 30 portable NMR magnetometers that equipped all Romanian geophysical prospecting teams and seven NMR analysers of the oil content of seeds for the oil factories [1]. With the IZMIRAN institute in Moscow, IFA built magnetometers for Intercosmos satellites: the SG-R1 (IK-18, 1978), SG-R2 (IK-20, 1979) and SG-R3 (IK-21, 1981); with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Prague it built the SG-R6 variometer which, with the Iași centre’s SG-R7, flew on the Czech subsatellites MAGION-2 (1989) and MAGION-3 (1991) [1]. Its portable MPFZA-3 magnetometer, approved in 1981, used a transducer made in Iași [1]. Chapter II of the same book says IFA’s magnetometers for Soviet and Czech satellites were comparable to those these countries had earlier bought from the USA [2]. IFA’s magnetometers used IDP 300 and IDP 400 panel meters from ICE [3].