European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF),Grenoble,France. Photograph of the ESRF storage ring,an 844 metre in circumference ring,where high energy electrons produced by the synchrotron circulate within a vacuum. The electrons can then be directed from the storage ring to a beamline,for use in a variety of experiments in fields as varied as solid state physics,materials science,chemistry,biology and medicine. At the time of its inauguration on September 30,1994,the ESRF was the world's brightest source of X-rays. It can produce X-rays that are one thousand billion times brighter than hospital X-rays |