During the event, more than 120 researchers from different scientific disciplines and national and international research institutions have met to showcase their scientific results and debate synchrotron light capabilities.
Nowadays, there are 1.200 users of synchrotron light in Spain, increased by 43% in relation to the previous congress held in 2013. According to Miguel Ángel García Aranda, scientific director of ALBA, this figure is meaningful because "for example, Germany – with synchrotron facilities for more than 20 years – has 4.000 users".
The talks of the congress have covered topics such as energy – in the search of more efficient batteries -, structural biology – solving cells and protein structures and processes – or magnetic properties of advanced materials or agro food science, among others. This variety of topics highlights the versatility of synchrotron light to face different research problems.
The event has counted on the presence of researchers from other European synchrotron facilities like Klaus Lipps from Bessy (Germany), Tilo Baumbach from ANKA (Germany), Gianfelice Cinque from Diamond (United Kingdom) and Germán Castro from the European synchrotron ESRF (France).
The best oral and posters contributions awarded by the ALBA Synchrotron were for Atul Bansode (Institut Català d'Investigació Química) for his research on heterogeneous catalytic conversion of CO2 and Francisco Acosta Reyes (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) -1st award - for his studies on macromolecular crystallography to develop a drug against the malaria and Alberto Rodríguez (Universidad de Sevilla / CSIC) - 2nd award - for his EXAFS study of nickel nanoparticles systems. AUSE awarded Belén Alemany (IMDEA Materials) as best oral contribution for her WAXS/SAXS study of CNT fibre based nanocomposites and José Cascales (Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, CSIC) -1st award - and Álvaro Rodríguez (Instituto de Estructura de la Materia IEM-CSIC) -2nd award - for XANES and XPS studies of hexagonal Boron Nitride (h-BN) films and semiconducting polymer nanostructures, respectively. Like in previous events, AUSE highlighted the best thesis using synchrotron-based techniques. On this ocassion, the winner was Ignacio Martín-Fabiani (University of Surrey) for the characterization, assessment and optimization of polymer nanostructures.
On Friday June 19th two parallel workshops were organized to know in detail two of the available techniques in ALBA: photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM), with the participation of scientists and users from CIRCE beamline, and high pressure powder diffraction, organized by the researchers of MSPD beamline, including the involvement of the beamline users.
It is worth mentioning that technological companies PIMicos and MDC Vacuum took also part in the event as sponsors.
Attendants at the Maxwell Auditorium during one of the sessions. Next, view of the joint ALBA-AUSE posters' session.
Group photo of all the congress delegates at the ALBA experimental hall. Next, exhibition area during coffee breaks.
Mari-Cruz García-Gutiérrez, president of AUSE, with the best AUSE poster contribution - José Cascales - and the best AUSE oral presentation - Belén Alemán. Next, Caterina Biscari, director of ALBA, with the best ALBA posters contributions - Francisco Acosta (1st award) and Alberto Rodríguez (2nd award) -.
