NEW RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES
Sirius will not only provide twice the energy to the electron beams than UVX, but also will keep the electron beam divergence, also called emittance, about 360 times smaller. This combination will make the brightness of the synchrotron radiation emitted at certain frequencies over a billion times higher than what is now available to researchers.
In the UVX, the energy of the light beam allows the analysis of only the surface layer of hard, dense materials, since the lower energy X-rays penetrate only a few micrometers within these materials. The higher energy of Sirius will allow these same materials to be analyzed at depths of up to a few centimeters. This is fundamental to the study of steel and other metals, as well as concrete and rocks, which will have a positive impact, for example, on the studies of the pre-salt layer for petroleum exploration.
The characteristics of the current Brazilian Synchrotron Light Source does not allow the investigation of certain chemical elements such as the important class of rare earths, which can only be effectively investigated with light sources such as Sirius.
The focusing of X-ray beams to a reduced size, which can reach the order of micrometer or even nanometer, is also an advantage of the new synchrotron source. In Sirius will allow experiments in which the X-ray beam reaches the sample with intensity and at the same time extremely focused, which will have decisive impact over experiments in biotechnology and nanotechnology.