The ALTO Facility in Orsay

The Institute of Nuclear Physicsat Orsay (IPN-Orsay) has always been a major player in building accelerators for nuclear physics. Already at the time when the first synchrocyclotronhad been built at CERN, IPN-Orsay had been operating and exploiting its first accelerator (a synchrotron that had been built by Frederic Joliot and around which the institute was founded). During the 1990s the phasing out of two of the IPN accelerators, the heavy-ion Linac + cyclotronsystem ALICE and the proton synchrocyclotron, was done timely with GANIL reaching its full performances. IPN Orsay was and still is a key player both during the construction and the exploitation of GANIL facilities. Later on and after building and delivering the superconducting cyclotronAGOR to KVI, the institute started a steady R&D program on ISOL production techniques, which is a long-standing tradition of the institute. It is for instance worth reminding that ISOL techniques were extensively developed at the synchrocyclotronof Orsay during...