Science at Synchrotrons and the ESRF EBS

Francesco Sette – ESRF

Synchrotron science is increasingly in demand to support research in many fields. Improvements in source reliability and properties open new science reach, and impressive instrumentation achievements in the data acquisition pipeline – including beamline automation, adapted sample environment, on-line data analyses packages, and powerful data storage and remote access facilities – open new opportunities in frontier research at synchrotrons for both traditional users’ communities and for applied and industrial research. Non-disruptive 3D-imaging with nanometer space resolution is particularly impressive when coupled with X-ray scattering and spectroscopy methodologies, as it can provide images with single atom chemical, bonding, magnetic, etc. information. Progress in synchrotron science is paralleled by important advances in other techniques and methods such as the development of X-ray science at XFELs, and progress in optical and electron microscopies. It is important, therefore to consider advances in synchrotron science in the broader context. This presentation reviews frontier science using synchrotron radiation from present and future storage rings, and refers to the ongoing Upgrade Programme (UP) of the ESRF. Launched in 2009, it aims to develop X-ray science in the study of the structure and dynamics of condensed and living matter down to nanometer space resolution, and time-scales down to the nanosecond. The UP objectives and science case were presented in 2007 in the ESRF Purple Book (http://www.esrf.fr/Apache_files/Upgrade/ESRF-SciTechProg2008-2017.pdf), and its first phase was successfully concluded in 2015 with the delivery of 19 new instruments and beamlines, and the conception of a new storage ring. This new hybrid multiple bend achromat storage ring lattice design efficiently enables the delivery of diffraction limited hard X-rays by drastically reducing the electron beam horizontal emittance; its adaptation to the existing ESRF storage ring tunnel will improve today’s performances by 100 in terms of brightness and transverse coherence. This exciting project, following the footsteps of the MAX-IV multiple bend storage ring implemented in Lund, is under construction at the ESRF since 18 months and will be operational in 2020. This ESRF Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS) programme has attracted worldwide attention, triggering similar conceptual studies in almost all existing and future synchrotron laboratories on the planet. The ESRF Orange Book (http://www.esrf.eu/Apache_files/Upgrade/ESRF-orange-book.pdf) describes the whole ESRF EBS programme including an update of the science case. The ESRF-EBS will deliver a new and first-of-a-kind storage ring, new adapted beamlines, and an ambitious instrumentation programme centred on X-ray detector developments and data handling strategies.