SISSI - Synchrotron Infrared Source for Spectroscopy and Imaging

Welcome to the SISSI Infrared Beamline

The SISSI infrared beamline at Elettra extracts the IR and visible components of synchrotron emission for performing spectroscopy, microspectroscopy and imaging. The applications cover a wide range of research fields, including surface and material science, biochemistry, forensics, microanalysis, geology, cell biology, biomedical diagnostics, microfluidics, high-pressures, time resolved IR, conservation science, protein folding, chemical kinetics etc.

Research highlights

A new approach based on FTIR spectroscopy to evaluate aging effects on human oocytes

For the first time, FTIR spectroscopy was applied to human oocytes, leading to strong evidences of damage from aging in the gametes of mature women, which could be related to a decline in reproductive function. 


G. Gioacchini et al. Fertil. Steril. 101, 120 (2014)
E. Giorgini et al. The Analyst 139, 5049 (2014)

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New biocompatible CaF2 fluidic devices for FTIRM based on SU-8 resist: a new chemically assisted thermo-mechanical bonding

Mild bonding conditions discussed are compatible with fragile and unconventional materials, but the protocol can be effortlessly extended to quartz, glass or silicon. Since the applicability of the protocol is general it can either impact on the other imaging techniques that require optical paths completely free from any polymeric material, or be applied to the fabrication of multilayer SU-8 devices. 
 E. Mitri  et al. Analyst 138, 4015 (2013) 
 

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Determination of cell cycle phase in live melanoma cells using SR-FTIRM

The intinsic vibrational details of individual live cells have been successfully exploited to sort in situ each of them according to the progression status, so that FTIRM can be ranked as the first label-free bioanalytical tool to monitor in real time individual cellular response to external agents, exactly knowing the progression state at the time of stress application 


D.E. Bedolla et al. Analyst 138, 4015 (2013) 
 

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Charge distribution in an oxide heterostructure

We employ infrared spectroscopy to address the electrodynamic properties of the LaNiO3/LaMnO3 superlattice series,an heterostructure based on strongly correlated materials. Our results show that charge redistribution across the interfaces is the key to its unconventional properties.

P. Di Pietro et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 156801 (2015)

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Squeezing THz light into nanovolumes

We show that chains of THz dipole nanoantennas spaced by nanogaps of 20 nm allow retrieving the spectroscopic signature of a monolayer of cadmium selenide quantum dots
A. Toma et al., Nano Letters 15, 386 (2015)

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Nonequilibrium superconductivity in alkali fullerides

The resonant excitation of the K₃C₆₀ fulleride superconductor led to the observation of a transient superconducting-like phase at unprecedented temperatures, far beyond equilibrium T_c
M. Mitrano et al., Nature 530, 461 (2016)

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Proposal Submission

We invite users and collaborators to discuss their proposals with the beamline local contacts well in advance before the submission deadline. This is crucial for improvements in the proposed experimental plan. In a restricted number of cases, when doubts arise about the suitability of your samples or the planned measurements are too close to the microscope resolution limit, it may be possible for you to arrange a test.