The Front Ends group takes care of the design, manufacture, testing, installation and operation of all ESRF Front Ends.

The latter constitute the interface between the source and the beamline and need to withstand unprecedented power densities from X-ray beams.

Located within the storage ring tunnel, a front-end is not really part of the Machine producing X-rays. Its main function is that of a shutter. When the shutter is open, the X-ray beam is carried towards the experimental hall, while it is dumped safely, when the shutter is closed.

The other components of the front-end are windows made from beryllium which isolate the ultra high vacuum in the storage ring from the experimental stations, and X-ray beam position monitors, which are used to align the optical elements in the Optics hutch of the beamline.

The technical challenge for the front-end and its components is the high power density (1.5 kW/mm2) in the X-ray beam. Faster than any welding machine, a mis-steered beam would take ~20 milliseconds to burn a hole in the stainless steel vacuum vessel of the storage ring.

The Front Ends group is composed of Group Leader Jean-Claude Biasci and six team members : David Frichet, Vincent Grilli, Eric Le Gallo, Jacques Leroux, Jacques Sendra and Phoutsavang Vongnarath.