Subordinate to: Yŏngbyŏn Nuclear Research Center (寧邊原子力硏究센터), General Department of Atomic Energy (原子力總局), Cabinet (內閣)

Size: 25 Mega-electron volts of radiation

Primary Function: Research and development, examining the internal structures of materials

Description: North Korea received its B-25 Betatron facility from the Soviet Union in 1966 as a part of the 1959 agreement on “the peaceful use of atomic energy,” which provided for Soviet assistance in North Korea’s establishment of a nuclear research institute. The betatron was designed as a gamma radiography facility, and it has been used as a pulsed neutron source to measure cross sections. IAEA technical cooperation reports claim this facility “has outlasted its usefulness.” Its current status is unknown.

	Updated April 2003

Key Sources:
Interview with Dr. Shin Sŏng T’aek, chief of the Force Development Research Team, Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, by CNS senior research associate Daniel A. Pinkston and CNS research associate Mari Sudo, 4 September 2002, Monterey; Gregory Karouv, A Technical History of Soviet-North Korean Nuclear Relations, in James Clay Moltz and Alexandre Y. Mansourov, eds., The North Korean Nuclear Program: Security, Strategy, and New Perspectives from Russia, (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 17; ROK Ministry of Unification, Pukhan Kaeyo 2000, ROK Ministry of Unification, 1999, p. 413.