ALBA (synchrotron)
It was constructed and is operated by CELLS (sp: Consorcio para la Construcción, Equipamiento y Explotación del Laboratorio de Luz de Sincrotrón, the Consortium for the Exploitation of the Synchrotron Light Laboratory), and co-financed by the Spanish central administration and regional Catalan Government.
It is a construction of great technical complexity due to the demands of the installation, which requires mechanical stability, temperature control and quality of the electrical supply.
In its implementation, the ALBA synchrotron has had a demand four times greater than its current capacity (of 8 light lines), mostly by Spanish scientists.
The Consortium for the Construction, Equipping and Exploitation of the Synchrotron Light Source (CELLS) was created to manage the project, and Joan Bordas was appointed as general director.
[6] "The full-field transmission X-ray microscopy beamline MISTRAL is devoted to cryo nano-tomography in the water window and multi-keV spectral regions (E = 270eV – 2600eV) for biological applications.
An upgrade of the microscope to higher energies (i.e. Zernike phase contrast at 2600 eV) is planned, as well as the development of correlated fluorescence visible light microscopy.
"[7] Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments provide structural and dynamic information of large molecular assemblies like polymers, colloids, proteins and fibres.
A wide range of fields (medicine, biology, chemistry, physics, archaeological, environmental and conservation sciences and materials) can be covered by this technique.
SAXS is a powerful technique that is used to study the supramolecular organization in biological systems, the structure and function of muscle filaments, corneal transparency, biological membranes, polymer processing, self assembly of mesoscopic metal particles, colloids, inorganic aggregates, liquid crystals and devices.
Recording SAXS and WAXS (wide-angle X-ray scattering) simultaneously results in a length scale which ranges from a few microns to a few angstroms.
The CLÆSS beamline provides a simultaneous and unified access to two complementary techniques: X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopes.
The variable polarization soft X-ray beamline is dedicated to fundamental, as well as applied, polarization-dependent spectroscopic investigation of advanced materials.
