The Elettra and FERMI: Two accelerator-based radiation sources in Trieste

Elettra is the Italian third generation synchrotron radiation laboratory located on the Triestinian Carso plateau. It is built around a medium energy electron storage ring operated between 2 and 2.4 GeV. The Elettra beamlines cover a wide energy range, from the far infrared to the hard x-rays, as the photon energy ranges between 2 meV and 40 keV, i.e. wavelengths between 0.6 mm and 0.3 A. Moreover, an existing LINAC, previously used as injector for the storage ring is being upgraded and converted into a Free Electron Laser (FEL), FERMI at ELETTRA (Free Electron laser Radiation for Multidisciplinary Investigations at Elettra) FEL. Both sources are built and operated by the Sincrotrone Trieste public no profit company. Beamlines are often built in collaboration with external partners from different scientific institutions, both Italian and from other countries. Together with the synchrotron radiation activity, Elettra hosts several support and complementary laboratories, which makes it a multidisciplinary Research and Service center, competitive at the international level by employing advanced micro/nano analytical, photolithographic and radiographic techniques. Researchers at Elettra are active in fields as diverse as genomics, pharmacology, biomedicine, catalysis and chemical processes, microelectronics and micromechanics. This wide range of applications makes the site an international crossroad where researchers, coming from different countries and disciplines and from academic and applied research, interact and exchange in a competitive, yet friendly, atmosphere, producing new knowledge and training junior researchers. Training of younger generations of scientists and engineers for research and industry is indeed one of the missions of the Sincrotrone Trieste public company. (author)