ESRF hosts a visit from the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility

The SSRF, run by China’s Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) has been operational for five years. It opened to users in 2009, becoming the first intermediate energy third generation light source in mainland China. For the past five years, it has been running with seven beamlines and six further experimental stations are about to open for user experiments. Seven more beamlines are already under construction and in the advanced design phase, while sixteen more are planned in the future.

With ESRF already having over 40 operational beamlines and the go ahead given for Phase II of its upgrade programme, and the SSRF planning Phase II of its development, the parties met to exchange details of their current and future activity. SSRF were shown the latest installations at the ESRF including those at the MASSIF-1 beamline where the first automated data collections with a new generation of sample robotics have recently been made.

 “As the most productive light source worldwide, the ESRF is a pioneer in synchrotron facilities and photon science”, said Professor Zhentang Zhao, Director General of SINAP. “The ESRF is one of the best reference models in the world for SSRF, its experience and success have benefited the SSRF design, construction and user operation.

“I was very happy to learn about the great success of ESRF’s Phase I upgrade which enables beamlines to perform 5000 times better than before. ESRF UP Phase II with a brand new near-diffraction-limited storage ring based on 7BA lattice is underway - an exciting new era for X-ray science is emerging for the next 20 years and beyond”.

Harald Reichert, the ESRF’s Director of Research, said: “With both synchrotrons currently planning phase II of their developments it makes sense to discuss technologies that are potentially of common interest. We were very pleased to host the visit from SSRF and are excited to see how their developments pan out during this exciting phase”.

Professor Zhao added: “Based on the existing collaborative framework MoU between ESRF and SSRF, we came here to strengthen and solidify the collaboration between ESRF and SSRF, and to explore specific collaborative objects with mutual interests and some long term interactions targeting the new era of X-ray science. We hope these collaborations can benefit both sides and will also contribute to the broader synchrotron community in the world”.

The delegation from SINAP also included Professor Renzhong Tai, Dr Juanhua HE, Dr Wanqian ZHU and Dr Xiangjun.

The ESRF will visit the SSRF next spring in a return visit.

Top image: ESRF directors welcome a delegation from the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility