ELETTRA Synchrotron
Submitted by admin on Thu, 2006-12-07 15:09.
ELETTRA is a large multidisciplinary national Synchrotron Light Laboratory, located in the AREA Science Park of Basovizza (Trieste).
The Laboratory is equipped with ultra-bright light sources in the spectral range from UV to X-rays and offers a competitive international environment to researchers from Universities, Laboratories and enterprises from all over the world.
Recent figures indicate over 700 users/year; about 45% of them are from the European Union, which supports the growth of the facility through the funding provided by the Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development.
Current research programmes focus on three particular avant-garde fields:
• structural biology;
• magnetic materials;
• microelectronics and micromechanics.
It is worth mentioning that fruitful co-operation with the industrial world has been increasing in recent years thanks to:
• the use of synchrotron radiation for industrial applications;
• the know-how and technological innovation of the companies providing instrumentation for the upgrading of the machine and the construction of new beamlines;
• the industrial exploitation of in-house know-how.
The use of synchrotron radiation in applied science and technology has in fact opened very promising prospects the fields of micro-and nanotechnology.
The development of in-house technical know-how is shared with the industrial community through contracts awarded to the Laboratory for the design, assembly and construction of instrumentation and components for other accelerators.
An interesting field of innovative in-house research and design at ELETTRA is that of radiation and electron detection: originally developed for measurements at the beamlines, it now represents a niche know-how that can be exploited by industrial partners.
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