The construction of the Test Facility (SPARC), dedicated to a robust R&D program on ultra-brilliant electron beam Linacs, and on FEL physics. It was approved and funded in 2003 by the Italian Ministry of Research in the framework of the national strategic research program  (FISR), and got additional support by the EUROFEL Projet within the 6th Framework Programme of UE.

The test facility is now completed, hosting a 150 MeV electron beam Linac which feeds a 12 meters long undulator. The Linac has been commissioned and the tests of most critical FEL components have been successfully completed, including High-Order Harmonic Generation (HHG), based on the interaction between the laser beam and a gas target, used for the seeding experiment. During the last commissioning days the spontaneous emission from the undulators has been observed. 

In the coming weeks and months an exciting R&D program is expected to be performed in order to generate the classical SASE radiation, and perform the testing of innovative radiation generation schemes based on the “seeding” process” and High Gain Harmonic Generation (HGHG) which can extend the operating wavelength of SPARX-FEL down to sub nanometer wavelength.  In a near future SPARC will be available to the user community, in order to test diagnostics, detectors and techniques for FEL based experiments.

It is worth reminding that the SPARX initiative follows the path of a long tradition in the development of Synchrotron Light sources and FELs concentrated in the Frascati area since the late ‘50s.

Here, pioneer researchers constructed the first Italian synchrotron, and the first-in-the-world colliding electron-positron storage ring “ADA”, where radiation-beam phenomena, up to then unknown, were discovered and interpreted by Bruno Touschek and his team.

Eventually, dedicated Synchrotron radiation beam-lines were built, in collaboration with CNR, on the storage ring ADONE where two generations of Italian synchrotron radiation scientists were trained and developed world wide recognized cutting-edge experiments.

More recently, a high level of expertise has been reached by ENEA and INFN on FEL’s physics and technology.