Sunday, 19th March 2023 at 14:30
David Wang Auditorium, 3rd floor Dalia Maydan Bldg.
Dr. Andrea Lausi
Scientific Director – SESAME, Jordan
Officially opened in Jordan on 16 May 2017, SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) is a cooperative venture by scientists and governments of the region, the first synchrotron light source in the Middle East and neighboring countries, and the region’s first major international center of excellence for research. The need for an international light source in the Middle East was first recognized more than 30 years ago by the Pakistani Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam. The idea of building a light source was very attractive thanks to the rich diversity of fields of science that can make use of such a facility and was later shared by the Middle East Scientific Co-operation (MESC) group, led by Sergio Fubini and located in CERN and the Middle East. Nowadays, SESAME is a third-generation synchrotron light source with three beamlines already open to users, which will be soon joined by two which are in the commissioning phase. Each beamline is specialized and equipped for one or a few techniques of analysis, and together the beamlines of SESAME currently provide access to IR spectromicroscopy, to fluorescence and absorption spectroscopies with soft and hard x-rays, to computer tomography, and to powder diffraction.