New Cooperation agreement between Elettra and Graz University of Technology (Press review)

The international research centre Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste and Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) strengthen their collaboration as they signed a scientific cooperation agreement today, Thursday, 21st November 2013 in Trieste, Italy. TU Graz is now officially the leading coordinator for the Austrian beamlines, SAXS and DXRL.

Accompanying the signing of the contract, Harald Kainz, Rector of TU Graz, handed over a new X-ray detector, which significantly increases the scientific possibilities at the Austrian beamlines.

Elettra is an Italian based international research centre specializing in the study of materials through synchrotron light and currently hosts over 30 different operational beamlines, which are being utilized by scientists and engineers from all over the world. Since the early days of Elettra, Austria has been coordinating the SAXS beamline and, more recently, also the DXRL beamline. As of today, TU Graz is the official leading coordinator for the Austrian beamlines and an important partner in this scientific network.

The Rector of TU Graz, Harald Kainz, expressed the great commitment of the Styrian University by empowering the beamline infrastructure with a brandnew X-ray detector.
"Collaboration and cooperation are more than just catchphrases for TU Graz– they are a crucial part of our self-conception. Therefore it is a great pleasure for us to lead the Austrian part of the outstanding research centre Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste. This research infrastructure brings great opportunities for all scientific partners in Austria and I am absolutely sure that this collaboration is going to be very fruitful”, emphasizes Kainz. 

“The agreement we have just signed - says Carlo Rizzuto, President of Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste - is another step in our long lasting collaboration with the Austrian research community, that has already yielded important results. Austria is with us one of the founding partners of CERIC-ERIC, the new distributed research infrastructure that brings together European centres specialized in the development and use of instrumentation for the study and characterization of materials, just like Elettra and the Technical University of Graz. "

Elettra’s light source makes it possible to see the details of the structure and behavior of atoms and molecules and therefore provides information in many fields of research, including electronics, environmental sciences, materials engineering, medicine, and micro and nanotechnology. The light beams produced are conveyed to beamlines that focus them and select their characteristics according to the experimental needs.
 
Beam us up, Elettra: the Austrian beamlines

SAXS
SAXS stands short for “Small Angle X-ray Scattering”, which is a non-destructive and highly versatile standard method to study the nanoscale structure of any type of material ranging from new composite nanosystems to biological macromolecules. The SAXS beamline has been in operational use since 1996. The list of promising technological fields which profit from the SAXS-station includes e.g. production of nanoparticles or drug/DNA delivery systems for pharmaceutical applications, improvement of food standards, design of custom-made materials for catalysis or separation technology, production and characterization of quantum dots assemblies or carbon nanotubes for the semiconductor industry. Samples can be solids, liquids or even in the gas phase.


DXRL
Deep X-ray lithography (DXRL) allows the production of high aspect ratio three dimensional structures in polymer with quasi perfect side-wall verticality and optical quality roughness. These structures can then be used as templates to mass-produce micro parts made out of a large variety of metals, alloys or ceramics. It opens a wide variety of potential applications in the field of micro electromechanical systems, fibre and integrated optics, microfluidic devices and interconnection technology. Moreover, the beamline performs an irradiation of samples with controlled X-ray doses, allowing therefore material science studies and the fabrication of micro devices made of new materials.

TU Graz
Alice Senarclens de Grancy
Media Relations
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Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste
Laura Bibi Palatini
Ufficio Stampa
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Tel.: (+39) 040-375-8493
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