Synchrotron: Destiny
When I was a physics student, the Physics Department of my University in the capital city of Sardinia organized a journey to Berlin for the senior master students to visit the most important labs. Among them, there was BESSY I. What an incredible experience, everything looked so fantastic, exciting, and complicated.
After that, for sake of curiosity, I attended the Italian synchrotron School that at the time was organized in Sardinia. I attended the school because I wanted to know more about synchrotron light, but I was sure that it would stay a “cultural opportunity” and nothing more.
A few years later I was offered a Ph.D. position at the University of Potsdam. The plan was that I would have been in charge of photocurrent investigations. BUT, the Ph.D. student that was in charge of the beamtime at Synchrotron in the same research group was never back from his vacation preferring to stay in sunny Spain. My supervisor decided that I would take over the Synchrotron beamtimes.
My very first beamtime was with the last photon at BESSY I.
Since then, I had the opportunity to perform wonderful experiments using Synchrotron facilities all over Europe, from working with the world record laterally resolved PEEM-LEEM at BESSY II to measuring XMCD at 150 mK at Petra III. I am also one of the German national delegates of the European Synchrotron and FEL User Organisation (ESUO).
Synchrotron was certainly my destiny
Image: Benedetta Casu during beamtime at BESSY II
Credit: Benedetta Casu