Materials science in synchrotron radiation

In the field of structural and electronic investigation of materials, synchrotron radiation offers today a large range of possibilities for the different interactions between photons and matter. Usable wavelengths stretch over infrared to X-rays photon beams coming out storage rings. They are weakly divergent, highly brilliant, polarised and pulsed. New opportunities are therefore overcoming the limitations of in-lab techniques and, moreover new kinds of experiments are opened to many very different users communities. The basic principles and the current state of some of these techniques are illustrated by typical examples which show in fact that huge improvements of their applications are still expected with the machines and instruments of the last generation. (author)