Status of the Commissioning of SOLEIL

SOLEIL is a third generation Synchrotron radiation Source, under construction in France at St Aubin, near Paris. The Storage Ring consists in a 357 m circumference ring, with 16 cells and 24 straight sections (4×12m, 12×7m, 8×3.6m), out of which up to 21 will house insertion devices. The optics, with distributed dispersion, features a low 3.7 nm.rad emittance at the 2.75 GeV operating energy, so as to provide high brilliance, from the VUV up to the hard X ray domain. In order to provide a long lifetime, and beam position stabilities in the micron range, significant attention was paid at each design stage (optics, magnets, beam position monitors, vacuum and RF systems,..), including the design of the building and infrastructure, the construction of which is now complete. This resulted in some unprecedented approaches such as the intensive use of NEG coating Aluminium vessels, or the development of a dedicated superconducting RF cavity and of 190 kW solid state RF amplifiers. The construction, started in 20...