Through the ongoing upgrade action, the STAR infrastructure will operate in terms of expansion and extension of the services offered to users.

The final objective is therefore to increase the competence area by improving the performance of the large equipment as well as the other instrumentation present in satellite laboratories, increasing, where necessary, the structure with new apparata. Our objective is reinforcing a multidisciplinary infrastructure in which a large apparatus is surrounded by service laboratories to provide exhaustive answers in very diversified sectors.

The main action is the strengthening of the core of the STAR research infrastructure: the hard X-rays TBS source and the experimental stations connected to it. This action allows to increase the number of available investigation techniques and, above all, to create experimental stations open to users with unique characteristics on the Italian scene and of difficult access in other countries. µTomo, the experimental high-energy micro-tomography station (up to 350 keV) will allow, due to the high penetrating power of this radiation, the investigation of materials and devices through the acquisition of 3D tomographies (with chemical contrast, density contrast, evolution the functionality of a system subjected to mechanical, electrical, thermal stresses, etc.) providing for the first time the possibility of carrying out such analyzes on massive samples and/or heavy elements. Moreover, the increase in X-ray beam intensity opens up the possibility of doing time-dependent analyses (4D) and therefore perform in-situ or operando studies of the chemical-physical characteristics evolution in materials exposed to specific processes.

The new experimental station, SoftX, is aimed at the field of composite materials, polymers and bio-materials. Imaging samples of interest in these fields will occur in their natural environment without further treatment providing valuable volume information.

A complementary action is aimed at strengthening the service laboratories that are dedicated to the analysis and characterization on different scales (macro, micro and nano) of traditional and innovative materials. The new equipment will allow extending the offered service to the characterization and analysis of metal, ceramic, composites, polymers, pharmaceuticals, chemical products in general, rubbers, food and pigments, and to the characterization of plasmonic properties and optical anisotropy of nanoparticles and, finally, to the manufacture/modification of devices in the fields of electronics, optics, photonics, optoelectronics, flexible electronics, photovoltaics and coatings.

The reasons for the choices made in the structure upgrade are related to the possibility to making available for the user community a series of new investigation techniques (such as high-energy tomography and X-ray and SAXS microscopy) with the support of Advanced Physics (Spectroscopy and Microscopy), Chemistry (Synthesis and Material Growth), Mechanics (Metrology, Physical Prototyping), Biology (Preparation of biological samples) and Modeling, Visualization and Simulation laboratories.

The degrees of innovation proposed are manifold: starting from the development of a new type of X-ray source, the TBS one, which provide high quality radiation, similar to that of synchrotrons large facilities, with much lower costs, easier access and in a reduced scale.

Therefore, a technological transfer at a regional level of the experimental techniques and methodologies developed over the last 20 years at the major European and extra-European facilities is carried out. In addition, the commissioning of new equipment, suitable for high-energy imaging, in which detectors, optics and monitoring will work on a not yet exploited energy region, would open a new field of investigation with clear fall-out in several technological and research fields.

Another innovative aspect is the location of the STAR infrastructure: it is not an isolated center delivering service to users but has been placed into the network of the UniCal departmental laboratories. The links are conveyed by the service laboratories that, belonging to different areas, allow a continuous osmosis of scientific relationships with other regional, national and international laboratories in both the public and private sectors.