Last Thursday the 14th, the visit, organized by the ACFM, to the ALBA Synchrotron took place.
ALBA is a 3rd generation Synchrotron Light facility located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, (Barcelona), being the newest source in the Mediterranean area.
It is a complex of electron accelerators to produce synchrotron light, which allows the visualization of the atomic structure of matter as well as the study of its properties. The 3 GeV electron beam energy at ALBA is achieved by combining a LInear ACcelerator (LINAC) and a low-emittance, full-energy BOOSTER placed in the same tunnel as the STORAGE RING. ALBA's 270 meter perimeter has 17 straight sections all of which are available for the installation of insertion devices.
ALBA currently has ten operational state-of-the-art beamlines, comprising soft and hard X-rays, which are devoted mainly to biosciences, condensed matter (magnetic and electronic properties, nanoscience) and materials science. Additionally, four beamlines are in construction (low-energy ultra-high-resolution angular photoemission for complex materials, microfocus for macromolecular crystallography, absorption and diffraction and fast X-ray tomography & radioscopy).
This large scientific infrastructure provides more than 6.000 hours of beam time per year and is available for the academic and the industrial sector, serving more than 2.000 researchers every year. Since as early as 2012, ALBA has been hosting official users, 65% from Spanish institutions and 35% from other countries.
Managed by the Consortium for the Construction, Equipping and Exploitation of the Synchrotron Light Source (CELLS), it is funded in equal parts by the Spanish and the Catalonian Administration, in particular by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Secretary of Universities and Research.
Attendees were attended by the scientist Gloria Molina Giralt and the infrastructure engineer José Manuel Portabella span> whose explanations allowed us to know both the scientific aspects and those of the management of the facilities.
The facilities and their operational requirements are of a high technological level, requiring specialized knowledge of many technologies for their operation and maintenance: Refrigeration systems, vacuum installations, systems for managing the quality of the electrical supply, optics, electron generators, magnets etc...
For operational efficiency, when it works, it does so continuously 24 hours a day, several days in a row, which is why scientific and operational equipment is required permanently and strict coordination with maintenance tasks. It is a facility in a continuous process of improvement, incorporating at all times the latest technologies applied to the studio. And one last detail: For security, the installation is not connected to the internet...
We take advantage of this to thank the organization of the ALBA Synchrotron and, specifically, Gloria Molina Giralt and José Manuel Portabella, for their close collaboration, as well as the time dedicated to the development of this day.