Beamline description

In electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA) microscopy, the X-ray emitted photo electrons are detected and analyzed in terms of their kinetic energy. Small shifts in element specific core or valence energies signalize changes and can give detailed information about bond bindings. ESCA is a method sensitive to the chemical information of few monolayers and offers therefore a special instrument for surface sensitive chemical analysis of heterogeneous materials.

The ESCA microscopy beamline at Elettra houses a worldwide unique instrument allowing combining chemically surface sensitive measurements with high spatial resolution. (see Scanning photoelectron microscope (SPEM) )

The beamline is a branch line sharing an undulator photon source with another beamline (SuperESCA). The recently (December 2010)  installed 98 periods undulator consists of two equal modules which produce horizontally polarised light. By setting the gap value from a minimum of 13.5 mm up to 40 mm the photon energy can be varied in the range 90÷1500 or 130÷1800 eV when the Elettra storage ring works at 2.0 or 2.4 GeV, respectively.

The beamline was installed and commissioned in 1994.