SESAME boosts electrons to 800 MeV

The Booster Synchrotron – a key machine at the SESAME facility in Jordan – is now operating at full design energy

At the SESAME facility in Allan, Jordan, a key accelerator has just reached its top energy.  The Booster Synchrotron – the second machine in the SESAME acceleration chain – is now accelerating electrons to 800 MeV.

Reaching this energy is a milestone for SESAME – the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East – which aims to bring scientists from the region together through international scientific cooperation.

Particle acceleration at SESAME starts with the Microtron, a machine 2.22 metres in diameter that can push electrons to 22 MeV. In July 2014 the SESAME team for the first time successfully stored electrons in the booster at 20 MeV. Then, on 3 September 2014 they accelerated electrons in the Booster to 800 MeV.

From the Booster, electrons will be passed through a transfer line to a storage ring that on each fill will keep an electron beam of 400 mA at 2.5 GeV circulating for hours. Bending magnets on the storage ring will force the electrons to change trajectory as they circulate, causing them to emit synchrotron light. The synchrotron light is SESAME's most important product – it will be passed though several beamlines to experimental areas. Scientists from the region have already applied to use SESAME's light beams for experiments in fields from medical imaging to archaeology.

The Booster is the first high-energy accelerator in the Middle East, and was built and is being run by a team of young scientists and technicians from the region for whom accelerator technology is a new field. This success will open the path for the final goal, which is to make SESAME the first operational synchrotron light source in the Middle East and to confirm its position as a truly international research centre.