The BEAmline for Tomography at SESAME (BEATS) operates a X-ray tomography station providing service to scientists from archaeology, cultural heritage, medicine, biology, geology, materials and environmental sciences. The beamline has a total length of 45 m, and an insertion device providing high photon flux and a usable beam size of 70×15 mm2 at the sample. The partial spatial coherence of Synchrotron illumination is preserved, allowing phase-contrast imaging of low-absorbing samples. Filtered white and monochromatic beam modalities are available. Full field radiography and tomography with a resolution below 1 micron and scan duration down to few seconds are achieved. In my contribution, I will present the design, installation, commissioning and first results of the first synchrotron microCT station in the Middle East.

BEATS was established in a collaboration between research facilities in the Middle East (SESAME and the Cyprus Institute), and European synchrotron radiation facilities ALBA-CELLS (Spain), DESY (Germany), the ESRF (France), Elettra (Italy), INFN (Italy), PSI (Switzerland) and SOLARIS (Poland).