ELBE as a User Facility

ELBE is a world-wide unique instrument providing a compact, accelerator-driven photon and particle source. The variety of secondary radiation being offered extends from high-energy gamma rays, to infrared and THz radiation, to neutron, positron and electron beams.

ELBE is operated as a user facility, providing more than 50% of the beamtime to external user groups.

The publications resulting from experiments at ELBE demonstrate the wealth of research fields covered by the activities at ELBE.

Application for Beamtime and Modalities of Access

Two calls for proposals for experiments at ELBE are published per year. The next deadline for the submission of beamtime applications for the 1^st term of 2026 will be

September 22nd, 2025.

Proposals are submitted through the user portal GATE. The use of the proposal template and the submission of reports from previous experiments are mandatory.

We strongly recommend discussing the feasibility of planned experiments with the responsible beamline scientist prior to the submission of a proposal, in particular, if you are a new user.

Access is free of charge for all non-proprietary research. User groups from outside Germany requesting access to beamlines involved in "Integrating activities" funded from the EU framework programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 may apply for a reimbursement of travel costs. Please visit our specific website on Trans-national Access for details on this funding scheme.

2025 FELBE / TELBE User Workshop

October 27-29, 2025

We are very happy to announce this year’s FELBE/TELBE User Workshop. It has been a few years since our last workshop and we are eager to gather together our current, past, and prospective users to share their results and ideas for new experiments in THz science.  We will also dedicate a session to DALI (the potential successor to ELBE) that will include a progress report and focused discussions on the THz science to be realized with the advanced new capabilities of the THz/MIR photon sources and instrumentation planned for DALI.

The workshop program will consist of a combination of invited and contributed talks, as well as an extended poster session. We encourage everyone interested to participate and also present their work. Information on how to submit an abstract for a contributed talk or poster will be posted soon on our workshop website.

Additional information can also be found at the workshop web site and feel free to download and post the flyer for our workshop.

Evaluation Process

The proposals are evaluated by the members of the international and interdisciplinary Scientific Advisory Committee for the ELBE - Center for High-Power Radiation Sources.

Allocation of Beamtime, Reporting and Publications

Based on the recommendations of this committee the final decision and allocation of beamtime are made by an internal panel headed by the Scientific Director of HZDR.
Applicants will be informed latest in December 2025.

After finishing the experiments and latest in the beginning of the next term (normally in January or June respectively), a report has to be submitted via GATE. Missing reports for completed experiments exclude the renewed scheduling of beamtime.

Pursuant to the Terms and Conditions of access to the research infrastructures at HZDR users are obliged to acknowledge access to ELBE by the following sentences:
Parts of this research were carried out at ELBE at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden - Rossendorf e. V., a member of the Helmholtz Association. We would like to thank (Names of the ELBE staff in case that they are not co-authors) for support.

Cancellation of Scheduled Beamtime

If necessary maintenance, urgent scientific or technical needs or operational faults of the facility lead to a delay of experiments or partial or complete loss of allocated access time, HZDR will attempt to reassign measurement time to affected Users. (Terms & Conditions of Access to the Research Infrastructues of HZDR).

If a scheduled beamtime is canceled upon the initiative of the user group, or if a beamtime cannot take place due to force majeure, the user group cannot claim any rescheduling of the lost beamtime. Instead, it may choose among the following three options:

• Resubmission of the proposal without revision and without a renewed evaluation. The rating is then preserved.
• Resubmission of the proposal without revision but requesting a renewed evaluation.
• Revision of the proposal and submission as a new project.

Trans-National Access Program NEPHEWS

Together with 22 other synchrotron radiation and neutron facilities, the HZDR is participating in the EU project NEutrons and PHotons Elevating Worldwide Science (NEPHEWS). NEPHEWS offers free-of-charge trans-national access (TNA) to the FELBE and TELBE beamlines at the ELBE facility, covering travel and accommodation for eligible users.

NEPHEWS' focus is on supporting researchers from Finland, Romania, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Serbia, Portugal, Ukraine, and countries without large scale research infrastructures. Researchers from the other EU countries are eligible, too. However, priority is given to the countries mentioned here.

If you want to apply for TNA support, please clearly state so in your experimental proposal.

For more detailed information, please visit our site on Financial support from Trans-National Access programs.