ALBA Synchrotron
ALBA, the Spanish Synchrotron Radiation Facility, held on past 15th of December its first Open Day. More than 1000 visitors mostly coming from Barcelona and the sorroundings neighbouring, arrived to the laboratory, on a sunny Mediterranean Winter day, and many hundreds more had to be postponed for the next events.
The lucky ones enjoyed the circuit along the laboratory installations, the view from the top of the accelerator tunnel, the passage near the experimental hutches and through one of the control rooms, the possibility to closely look a copy of one arc of the ring, a monochromator, an rf cavity. The circuit was enriched by divulgative panels showing the principle of particle accelerators, of synchrotron radiation production and utilization, together with many scientific SR applications.
The event had been organized thanks to the volunteer participation of ALBA staff,
who
with enthusiasm, professionality and joy of showing their daily work to visitors, made the day a full success.
ALBA has entered in user operation during this year, and five out of seven beamlines have already hosted official users. The other two will be operational after present Christmas shutdown. The accelerator is routinely operated with a 3GeV electron stable current of 100 mA, envisaging to implement in one year from now top-up operation and higher currents.
The first paper with scientific results based on ALBA data has been published in December.