The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) is a joint research facility located in Grenoble, France. Research in the ESRF focuses, in large part, on the use of X-ray radiation in fields as diverse as protein crystallography, earth science, materials science, chemistry and physics. Facilities such as the ESRF offer a flux, energy range and resolution unachievable with conventional (laboratory) radiation sources. Synchrotron radiation sources, which can be compared to “supermicroscopes”, reveal invaluable information in numerous fields of research. There are about 50 synchrotrons in the world being used by an ever growing number of scientists. More than 2000 applications are received each year for beam time at the ESRF.

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Preliminary studies on the oak panel of the Old Man were conducted in Grenoble using K-edge x-ray absoprtion.

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