ALBA: the Spanish synchrotron light source. Description of the project and recent achievements.

Program Description: 

ALBA is the synchrotron light source in Spain located in the Barcelona area. It is a third generation 3 GeV machine and since about two years, seven  beamlines are in operation for external users. In the talk I will describe the main characteristics of the project, and mention some results  of general interest concerning optical developments and also beamline control issues. 

A description of the beamlines and some representative recent results will also be presented ranging from in-operando chemical reactions  investigated with X ray absorption, magnetic coupling ferro/ antiferro in nanoparticles monitored with XMCD,cryo-tomography of biological cells  obtained with a soft X ray microscope and also magnetic domain imaging of thin films.