A SMALL Fermanagh electronics firm is playing a starring role in helping the world’s biggest science project go with a bang.
Enniskillen-based Elite Electronics has designed and engineered specialist power packs which are at the core of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the device scientists hope will uncover the mysteries of the universe.
The LHC, which is located inside a circular underground tunnel deep below the French-Swiss border, last week made history when it became the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator. Scientists, who are attempting to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang, collided beams of subatomic particles together for the first time.
But the physics might not have been possible without the input of the Fermanagh firm selected by Cern (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research), which operates the LHC.
Last year the giant scientific experiment suffered a serious setback when a large helium leak caused an explosion in the LHC tunnel.
A new magnet-protection system was devised for the LHC and Elite Electronics supplies the power packs that are a key component in the new early warning system.
Jonathan Balfour, sales and marketing director of Elite Electronics, said the firm was delighted to be supplying units for use with the magnets at the core of the accelerator.
“Our business involves the development and assembly of complex electronic systems, including circuit boards to complex systems for a range of customers; our products are shipped all over the world. The Cern contract is an endorsement of our expertise,” Mr Balfour said.
Elite Electronics is one of a number of Northern Ireland firms who could potentially benefit from an Invest NI initiative to encourage local companies to tender for Cern contracts.
The North’s Minister for Enterprise Arlene Foster has said the Geneva-based Cern project has a total budget of more than €380 million to spend on contracts.
Elite Electronics is not the only Northern Ireland connection to the world’s most exciting physics project. The North has a major advantage when it comes to working with the Cern project team. One of its top scientists is Belfast-born Dr Stephen Myers, the Queen’s University graduate is Cern’s director for accelerators and technology.
