Grand Accélérateur National d'Ions Lourds
The Grand Accélérateur National d'Ions Lourds (GANIL) is a French state-owned heavy ion accelerator facility in Caen owned by the CEA and the CNRS . The plans for the building were made in 1973 and after the decision to build in 1975, the first experiments were carried out in 1983. In 2001 the SPIRAL system (Système de Production d'Ions Radioactifs Accélérés en Ligne) was put into operation, initially Spiral 1, which was continued in 2010 by Spiral 2 in cooperation with India. It consists of a linear accelerator and a cyclotron for medium energies and also serves as a neutron source.
At GANIL, exotic kernels that do not occur naturally under normal conditions are examined.
The director is Sydney Galès (* 1943) in 2009 .