FERMI turns 15

On 14 December 2025, we celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the first light of FERMI, the ultrafast light source of Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste. First switched on in 2010, FERMI is Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste’s free-electron laser, dedicated to the production of ultrafast pulses of coherent light in the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray regions.

Thanks to a seeded architecture, which enables extremely precise control of the radiation properties, FERMI allows the investigation of ultrafast physical and chemical processes, such as chemical bond formation, diffusionless phase transitions, and non-equilibrium phenomena on timescales down to the attosecond.
For 15 years FERMI has revealed the ultrafast worldand will keep supporting the research community investigating ultrafast processes.

Press Review
Il Piccolo dd 04.01.2026: 'Laser Fermi, 15 anni di ricerche. Nel 2026 alleanza con Shanghai' (by subscription)