BEAMLINES and FACILITIES 

All 30 Beamlines at ESRF are now in operation, and provide some 500 shifts of beam time each year for user experiments, after deducting machine-dedicated runs and maintenance days.  In addition, several externally funded, Collaborating Research Group (CRG) beamlines, make available 1/3 of their beam time to ESRF users.  During the year, two long shut-downs are scheduled:  4 weeks in winter and 3 weeks in summer. Beamlines at ESRF operate 24 hours a day in three shifts, each of 8 hours.

Important

Please note that the review committees will consider applications only for those beamline(s) which are requested on the proposal form. You are therefore requested to contact the scientists in charge of beamlines on which your project may be feasible, prior to submitting your application. If you are requesting a beamline for the first time, consultations prior to submission are essential.

The lists of Beamlines, as well as the definition of Fields of Research are useful guides to alternative choices. For details of supporting laboratories, please consult the Technical Beamline Support (TBS) pages.

APPLICATION FOR BEAM TIME

Two proposal review rounds are held each year, with deadlines for submission of applications on 1st March and 1st September for the scheduling periods August to February, and March to July respectively.

• Requests for beam time are based on shifts of 8 hours.  Allocations of beam time will usually be made in multiples of 3 shifts.

   

• Check your proposal with ESRF Beamline staff before submission.
  
  

Please pay particular attention to the person nominated as the "main proposer" since this person receives all correspondence relating to the project, and is expected to act as the experimental team coordinator if the project is allocated beamtime.

Each application is assigned to a broad scientific domain and is submitted to a Review Committee.  Members of these committees are specialists in relevant AREAS OF SCIENCE and are appointed by the ESRF management.  Since the proposal review round September-October 2005, the ESRF increased the number of Review Committees, that assess proposals for their scientific merit or technical relevance, from nine to eleven.

In effect, in view of the very large number of proposals arriving over recent periods, and of emerging areas of research, two committees have been split:

Hard condensed Matter - Structures (HS) became:

    * Crystals and Ordered Systems, Structures (HS) and
    * Disordered systems and Liquids (HD)

and the Materials, Engineering & Environmental Matters (ME) panel has been split into:

    * Applied Materials and Engineering (MA) and
    * Environmental and Cultural Heritage Matters (EC).

REVIEW COMMITTEES and AREAS OF EXPERTISE

1. Chemistry-related Studies: CH
   
   The chemistry committee deals with proposals to study the structure, state, composition and reactions of substances, including chemical crystallography, characterisation of structural phase transitions, polymorphism, investigation of reaction pathways and catalysis.
   
   
2. Environmental and Cultural Heritage Matters: EC
   
   The last of the new committees will deal with proposals related to environmental and earth sciences and cultural heritage materials and artefacts, primarily requiring 2D/3D X-ray imaging and in particular techniques such as X-ray fluorescence, micro-XAS infrared microspectroscopy, and X-ray tomography.
   
   
3. Disordered systems and Liquids: HD
   
   This second new committee will address studies of the structure and dynamics of disordered systems and liquids by elastic and inelastic scattering, EXAFS as well as correlation spectroscopies.
   
4. Electronic and Magnetic Properties: HE
   
   This committee addresses the electronic and magnetic propoerties of materials; structural properties aspects are included but only when related directly to magnetic or electronic properties. Techniques/methods include Compton and magnetic Compton scattering, Nuclear resonance scattering, Hyperfine spectroscopy, X-ray dichroism, X-ray magnetic scattering and diffraction, X-ray emission spectroscopy, inelastic X-ray scattering, photoemission, etc.
   
   
5. Crystals and Ordered Systems, Structures: HS
   
   This new committee will examine studies of the structures of ordered systems, and high-pressure studies.
   
   
6. Applied Materials and Engineering: MA
   
   This newly-constituted panel will assess studies of industrial or engineering relevance.
   
   
7. Medicine: MD
   
   This committee reviews proposals relating to bio-medical research requiring 2D-3D X-ray imaging, fluorescence, and small angle scattering. In addition it reviews radiobiology, dosimetry and radiotherapy-related proposals.
   
   
8. Methods and Instrumentation: MI
   
   Experimental studies aiming at the further development of synchrotron radiation instrumentation, ranging from passive and active optical elements to detectors, experimental set-ups and advanced sample environment are reviewed by this Committee. 
   
   
9. Macromolecular Crystallography: MX
   
   The Macromolecular Crystallography Review Committee reviews proposals to study the structure determination of biological macromolecules using X-ray crystallography. Experimental methods include single or multi-wavelength anomalous dispersion (SAD/MAD) and molecular replacement using fixed wavelength X-rays. Beam-time applications for the study of macromolecular structures using the Laue technique are also considered.
   
    
10. Soft Condensed Matter and Biological Materials: SC
    
    Proposals dealing with soft matter, non-crystalline structural biology and the interdisciplinary area of nanoscience are reviewed by this committee. Topics include structure, equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics, and kinetics in the bulk and at interfaces. Experimental techniques include AXS, WAXS, micro-diffraction, XPCS, GISAXS, GIXD, USAXS, reflectivity, etc.
    
    
11. Surfaces and Interfaces: SI
    
    This committee examines proposals related to studying structural, dynamical, chemical and electronic properties of surfaces and interfaces using a variety of techniques, which comprise surface X-ray diffraction, X-ray Standing Waves, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, GISAXS, XCS, etc.
    
    Proposals from other fields of science are also accepted as long as analysis of surface and interfaces is involved.

 

ELECTRONIC APPLICATION FOR BEAM TIME

The APPLICATIONS FOR BEAM TIME must be submitted ELECTRONICALLY for the following categories of proposals and experiments:

REVIEWED PROPOSALS

• STANDARD Research Proposals
• LONG TERM PROJECT Proposals (What is a Long Term Project?)
• BAG Proposals
  
• MX non-BAG Proposals (rolling access procedure)
  
  
  

NON-REVIEWED EXPERIMENTS

• TEST CRYSTALS Experiments

Before submitting a proposal for ESRF Beam Time, we strongly recommend that you first consult (and keep) the Proposal Guidelines specific to the category of your new proposal(s) very carefully, as these contain detailed instructions regarding the electronic submission of your proposal(s).

ASSESSMENT & BEAM TIME ALLOCATION

Beam time is allocated on the basis of scientific merit, following the recommendations of the Review Committees, and provided the experiment proposed meets technical feasibility and safety requirements.

The Review Committees, assisted by external referees where appropriate, consider the proposals: they first assign each proposal a grade between 0 and 5 on the basis of scientific merit, 5 being the top score. At their meetings, the committees discuss the projects, and arrive at a final grade for each proposal; they also rank the proposals in order of priority for each beamline. This round, we have introduced the notion of "quartiles", to give proposers a more precise indication of the relative ranking of their projects. The scores for each beamline have therefore been divided into sections, the first section with the best scores being allocated beamtime. Thus the second section represents good rankings, below the cut-off for allocation, and the fourth, the lowest set of rankings.

For Macromolecular Crystallography proposals, full details of samples mentioned in each proposal MUST also be provided to the ESRF, at the time an application is submitted, through the completion and submission of electronic Sample Sheet(s). Failure to provide this information in the correct format will mean an application will NOT be accepted.

Beam time for non-proprietary industrial research is available on the same conditions as university-based research; users from industrial firms however do not receive a contribution to their expenses.

SCHEDULING OF EXPERIMENTS

Following each meeting of the Review Committees, proposers are informed of the decisions taken.  If beam time has not been allocated, brief, general reasons only are given, as the ESRF does not enter into correspondence concerning decisions made by the scientific Review Committees.

When beam-time is allocated, invitations for experiments, together with detailed instructions, are then communicated to the Proposers concerned by the ESRF User Office several weeks ahead of the scheduled experiment.