New synchrotrons at ESRF will increase understanding of materials and matter

The facility in Grenoble, France, which uses intense X-rays to act like a giant microscope, has launched the second phase of a €330m (£236m) programme that will boost the brilliance of the X-rays and their coherence by a factor of 100.

This will open new fields of investigation thanks to the possibility of efficiently reaching spatial resolution at the nanometre level, enabling unprecedented characterisation.

The second phase will include replacing the storage ring, an 844m tube in which electrons travel at just below the speed of light, while reusing 90% of the facility’s existing structure.

“The trick was to find a technical solution to use or to build a storage ring that could work with the existing pre-accelerator chain and still deliver the full advantage of much higher brilliance,” ESRF research director Harald Reichert told The Engineer.

The storage ring consists of 32 cells, with precise sequences of components such as magnets, vacuum chambers and position monitors.