Synchrotron SOLEIL

High-technology facility, SOLEIL is a very brilliant electromagnetic radiation source. It is a cutting-edge multidisciplinary research laboratory, a service platform open to all scientific and industrial communities, and a centre for exchanges where we spread scientific and technical knowledge. SOLEIL, an acronym for optimized Light Source of Intermediate Energy to Lure, is a research center located on the Plateau de Saclay in Saint Aubin, Essonne. More concretely, it is a particle (electron) accelerator that produces the synchrotron radiation, an extremely powerful light that permits exploration of inert or living matter. SOLEIL is a 3rd generation source of synchrotron radiation created by CNRS and CEA, operating at energy of 2.75 GeV and stored beam currents (top_up injection) of 500mA. SOLEIL offers a unique panorama of experiments with 29 beamlines in operation, covering the far IR to the hard X-ray range, and is open to a large scientific and industrial community in a very broad range of fields from life-sciences to material science including surface, solid states and gas phase physics and chemistry. The 3rd generation of synchrotrons is characterised by a massive use of straight sections equipped with undulators and wigglers as well as by a natural very small emittance. SOLEIL undulators are tailor_made to best meet the needs of users. This leads to orders of magnitude higher brilliance than conventional bending magnets and laboratory sources. Associated with high stability and infinite lifetime (one of the strengths of SOLEIL, which works in top-up mode to have a constant heat load on the optics), these exceptional characteristics allow considerable advances in the quality of the measurements. Users are hosted on the various beamlines by a local contact (one of the beamline scientists), who will assist users in conducting the experiment at various levels: preparation of the experiment, data acquisition and data treatment.