This article is mostly concerned with applications of synchrotron radiation. For details of the production of synchrotron light, see synchrotron and synchrotron radiation.

Synchrotron radiation emerging from a beam port. The blue colour comes from oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the air, ionised by the X-rays

Synchrotron light is electromagnetic radiation produced by bending magnets and insertion devices (undulators or wigglers) in storage rings and free electron lasers. The major applications of synchrotron light are in condensed matter physics, material science, biology and medicine. A large fraction of experiments using synchrotron light involve probing the structure of matter from the sub-nanometer level of electronic structure to the micrometer and millimeter level important in medical imaging. An example of a practical industrial application is the manufacturing of microstructures by the LIGA process.

Beamlines

Beamlines of Soleil

Experimental techniques and usage

Synchrotron light is an ideal tool for many types of research and also has industrial applications. Some of the experimental techniques in synchrotron beamlines are:

• Structural analysis of crystalline and amorphous materials
• Powder diffraction analysis
• Crystallography of proteins and other macromolecules
• Magnetic scattering
• Small angle X-ray scattering
• X-ray absorption spectroscopy
• Inelastic X-ray scattering
• Tomography
• X-ray imaging in phase contrast mode
• Photolithography for MEMS structures as part of the LIGA process.
• High pressure studies
• residual stress analysis
• X-Ray Multiple Diffraction

Some of the advantages of synchrotron light that allow for these practical uses are:

• High energy X-rays, short wavelength photons which can penetrate matter and interact with atoms.
• High concentration, tunability and polarization thus ensuring focusing accuracy for even the smallest of targets.

Compact synchrotron light sources

Because of the usefulness of tuneable collimated coherent electromagnetic X-Ray radiation, efforts have been made to make smaller more economical sources of the light produced by synchrotrons. One such effort has been undertaken by Lyncean Technologies, Inc. with their Compact Light Source (CLS)http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/lti-msp030106.php. When compared to the size of the particle accelerators from which synchrotron light is derived, the CLS represents a 200 fold decrease in size. This reduction in scale should make synchrotron light accessible to many more labs and researchers.

See also

• List of synchrotron radiation facilities
• List of light sources

External links

• Light source primers
• Lightsources.org

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