South Korean-designed and produced heavy ion accelerator, RAON, has passed the first phase towards a successful operation.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT on Wednesday, researchers at the Institute for Basic Science successfully conducted the first beam test in a low-energy acceleration zone at around 3 p.m. last Friday.

The argon beam energy surpassed 700 kiloelectron volt per unified atomic mass unit(keV/u), with the beam current reaching 30-point-one microamperes.

The ministry said the test outcome has confirmed the interoperability of RAON's key devices and low-speed operation.

With the government spending one-point-five trillion won into the 12-year project, the ion accelerator was built to produce a variety of stable and rare isotope beams to further research in basic science.