PREFACE

Since the first observation of synchrotron radiation in 1947, progress in the generation of electromagnetic radiation using particle accelerators and in experimental methods has allowed enormous progress in the fine analysis of matter. This progress has not been incremental but rather truly innovative and in some cases revolutionary. Thanks to advances in accelerator physics and technology the improvement in the characteristics of synchrotron radiation and free electron laser sources, especially brilliance, coherence and time structure, has spanned many orders of magnitude. At the same time, new methods to investigate matter have been developed which have led to original approaches for its characterization in the domains of real and reciprocal space, energy and time. Progress in these two aspects—sources and experimental methods—has been truly synergic. While the first applications of synchrotron radiation were in the field of solid-state physics, its use now is ubiquitous in all the physical and natural sciences, with also significant medical applications. ‘Samples’ studied at beamlines range from man-made inorganic materials and devices, natural minerals and rocks, environmentally significant specimens, cultural heritage materials, biologically relevant molecules, tissues and in some cases even live human patients. The importance and societal relevance of synchrotron radiation has been recognized by the scientific community and by policy makers worldwide. Due to the investment and operation costs required to operate a synchrotron radiation or free electron laser source, centralized large-scale infrastructure user facilities have been developed. In recent decades, there has been an evolution from the parasitic use of synchrotron radiation emitted by accelerators designed for particle physics experiments to facilities specially designed exclusively for photon science-based experiments. The scientific goal of numerous important national laboratories in the world has changed from particle physics to photon science. Most industrialized and some developing countries now have a national synchrotron radiation facility; there are also important examples of international cooperation for the construction and operation of facilities, ranging from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, a major laboratory funded by a wide European collaboration, to SESAME—a UNESCO sponsored project intended also as a means to encourage collaboration and peace in the Middle East. Access to these facilities is commonly regulated by an open access policy based exclusively on merit: whoever has a good idea to use synchrotron radiation has