Photo: CELLS
ALBA is the name of the synchrotron light laboratory that will come on line in Cerdanyola del Vallés in 2009. This state-of-the-art facility will serve as a huge microscope revealing the secrets of atoms and molecules. It will be used by researchers and high-tech companies.
The 22,870 sq. m. facility is housed in a central concrete and glass building in the shape of a snail shell with a diameter of 140 metres. Workshops and centres for producing energy will be housed on different levels underground.
There are as many as 16 synchrotrons in Europe, but ALBA will be the only one south of the Paris-Trieste corridor (excluding the European facility at Grenoble).
The synchrotron is managed by CELLS (the Consortium for the Construction, Equipping and Operation of the Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory) and is financed jointly by the Generalitat and the Spanish State.
