Supported by France 2030 and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Regional Council, PACMANS, Program for Absolute surface Control of Mirrors At Nanometer level for Synchrotrons, is a regional Investissement d’Avenir (PIA4) programme in the ‘Collaborative R&D Projects’ category. Its aim is to develop new-generation synchrotron X-ray mirrors that meet the market’s growing demands for precision and performance.
The fourth regionalised Programme d’Investissement d’Avenir (PIA4), which focuses on “Collaborative R&D Projects” for the Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur region, has chosen to support PACMANS, an innovative, high added-value proposal aimed at the buoyant synchrotron market. Led by Bertin Technologies, this innovative project is based on a consortium of French players including several CNRS laboratories and in particular the LSBB (Laboratoire Souterrain à Bas Bruit) which, thanks to its exceptional environment, will be able to carry out state-of-the-art mirror metrology.
Bertin Technologies is one of the world’s few suppliers of advanced optics for synchrotrons. In 20 years, through its brand Bertin Winlight, Bertin Technologies has manufactured more than 600 X-ray mirrors for synchrotrons around the world, where they have played a fundamental role in transporting and focusing X-ray beams on the machine’s light lines. Today, however, the trend is to renovate or renew the installations in order to improve the optical quality of the X-ray beam and break new ground in terms of resolution. To exploit the radiation from these modernised machines, it would appear necessary to supply a new generation of X-ray mirrors with a shape error of less than 1nm PtV and a roughness of less than 1Å rms. Such performances require a new innovative polishing technology and its associated metrology to be developed: this is what the PACMANS project is all about.
Thanks to a multi-disciplinary consortium of excellence, PACMANS will consolidate a French champion in the supply of complete high-energy X-ray focusing equipment at industrial level. This project, whose potential has attracted the full attention of the French government, also aims to strengthen France’s sovereignty in the field of high-performance optical instrumentation, by guaranteeing our independence from foreign supplies in critical sectors. With PACMANS, Bertin Technologies is once again demonstrating its commitment to innovation, contributing to a new era of synchrotron performance. It also opens promising prospects for future research and development in strategic sectors of the future.