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EDITORIAL
June 2022 ESRFnews
Editor Jon Cartwright Tel +44 (0)117 2303080 E-mail jon.a.cartwright@ icloud.com
Editorial committee Nick Brookes Delphine Chenevier Andy Fitch Michael Krisch Gema Martínez-Criado Joanne McCarthy Edward Mitchell Stéphanie Monaco Annalisa Pastore Qing Qin Francesco Sette
Subscription Chantal Argoud For subscriptions to the digital version of ESRFnews (print subscriptions are no longer possible), visit www. esrf.eu/UsersAndScience/ Publications/Newsletter
ESRFnews is produced for the ESRF by: IOP Publishing Temple Circus Temple Way Bristol BS1 6HG, UK Tel +44 (0)117 929 7481 www.ioppublishing.org
Head of media Jo Allen Production Kyla Rushman Technical illustrator Alison Tovey Display advertisement manager Edward Jost
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ISSN 1011-9310 ©2022 ESRF
ESRF news
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the first observation of synchrotron radiation from a circular accelerator. Since the first observations at the General Electric Research Laboratory in New
York, US, it was quickly realised that a relativistic circular electron accelerator could be adapted to produce light with a broad spectrum (see Insight, p11). Since those pioneering times, research based on synchrotron radiation has made fantastic progress. Its use is almost ubiquitous in the study of the atomic structure of condensed and living matter, assembling the largest scientific user community worldwide. Increasing demand has led to the development of dedicated synchrotron sources across the globe, with subsequent generations characterised by revolutionary ideas, technologies and new science capabilities. Following the success of the ESRF the first third-generation synchrotron in
the mid-1990s, as well as Elettra in Italy, the Advanced Photon Source in the US, SPring-8 in Japan and subsequent machines, accelerator physicists have never stopped pushing the limits of technology, bringing X-ray science into domains and applications that were previously unimaginable. In August 2020, the ESRF launched the first high-energy, fourth-generation synchrotron source, the ESRF EBS, based on a new lattice design that increases the brightness of third- generation sources by two to three orders of magnitude thanks to the combination of objective-driven, smart solutions to complex relativistic beam-dynamics problems, and the availability of new, high-precision accelerator components. The EBS provides synchrotron X-rays 100 times brighter and more coherent than the previous ESRF storage ring, opening a gateway to new X-ray science opportunities. This issue of the ESRFnews highlights the diversity of science carried out using
synchrotron light. From the 2009 Nobel prize-winning work on the structure of the ribosome,
to overcoming pandemics such as COVID-19; from developing new sustainable materials to mitigating the impact of climate change, synchrotrons have played a vital role in the journey of scientific progress for society. Who knows where the next generation of storage rings will take us? Perhaps to a fully coherent, laser-like, fully tunable source from the ultraviolet to the hard X-ray region?
Francesco Sette ESRF director- general
75 years of synchrotron light for science