Construction of World's Deepest Underground Lab Underway

Construction of the world's deepest underground facility for extremely-low background radiation physical experiments started on Dec 20 at the Jinping Hydropower Station over the Yalong River in Southwest China's Sichuan province.

Invested and contracted by State Development & Investment Corp., Ltd., the project is a major infrastructure for scientific research and the first in China of its kind.

The facility is intended to support study of major advanced physical issues in particle physics and nuclear physics.

The facility's construction marks the beginning of the second phase of the Jinping Underground Laboratory project.

With a total investment of 1.19 billion yuan ($182.19 million), construction of the lab is to be completed in five years with the lab scheduled to be put into service in December 2024.

Upon completion, it will feature an available space of 300,000 cubic meters and its building area of the supporting experimental platform above the ground will be about 4,000 square meters.

The entire facility is expected to provide services such as advanced extremely-low radiation environmental monitoring.

It is also expected to play a role in promoting China's nuclear and particle physics studies through an open platform and resource sharing.

Several direct detection experiments on dark matter as well as neutrino experiments were carried out in the first phase of the Jinping Underground Laboratory project.

(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)