The University of Montreal recently inaugurated a new 1.7 MV Tandem accelerator for materials research. It is being used to study a wide range of topics involving optical, electronic, opto-electronic, and magnetic materials. Current research includes: threshold dose for secondary damage in Si, gettering of impurities in Si by nano-cavities, ion beam mixing of metallic multilayers probed by giant magnetoresistance, tracks and deformations induced by multi-MeV ion beams, and high-resolution radial distribution function of pure amorphous silicon. A selection of recent results is discussed.