Schools on Synchrotron Light Sources and their Applications
Training the next generation of synchrotron users is one of the main missions of LAAAMP. In addition to the FAST Teams programme, which dispatches teams composed of a faculty member and a PhD student to partnering synchrotron facilities for a period of two months, LAAAMP coordinates the organisation of a series of online schools on Synchrotron Light Sources and their Applications as part of the Abdus Salam ICTP Scientific Calendar. Therefore, the realisation of any annual edition of the school is subject to the approval of the proposal that LAAAMP submits to the ICTP Scientific Calendar.
Main partners of this initiative are LAAAMP, ICTP, IAEA, AfLS, SESAME, and ESRF. Other collaborators might be involved.
This school series is aimed at introducing young scientists to the design, operation, and research opportunities offered at a modern synchrotron light source and how such sources are realized.
The schools are normally held over two weeks and consist of three modules:
- Physical aspects concerning the design and function of the main components: accelerators, insertion devices and beamline optics;
- Overview of the arguments that can be made in order to fund and build a synchrotron light source, including socioeconomic benefits, stakeholder engagement, communication; and
- Overview of common beamline techniques, including those utilizing X-rays and infrared radiation.
Topics
- Fundamentals of synchrotron radiation from storage rings
- Fundamentals of X-ray interactions with matter
- Design and operation of storage rings
- Beamline design: Photon transport and optics
- Bending magnets and insertion devices
- Project management at a large facility
- Ancillary devices for light sources
- Socioeconomic justification
- Cultural heritage
- Stakeholder engagement/communications
- Starting up user operations at a new facility
- Industrial Applications
- IR microscopy
- Basics of X-ray crystallography and powder diffraction
- Basics of structural biology
- Fundamentals of X-ray absorption: EXAFS and XANES
- XRF, TXRF, GIXRF and their applications in materials and life sciences
- Tomography
LAAAMP Director of Synchrotron Training: Sekazi Mtingwa