Synchrotron radiation techniques for structural and morphological investigations on clusters: present and future

In this paper, the contribution of last generation synchrotron radiation sources to structural and morphological issues in cluster science is briefly reviewed. Experiments are reported where each of the main properties of this kind of sources (brilliance, intensity and flexible time structures) played a key role in the presented study. These examples show the unique opportunities offered by these sources when extreme conditions as limited space/time regions or high sample dilution are required. In the last part, the next generation sources, the Free Electron Lasers, are presented with attention to applications to cluster materials. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.