Office of Basic Energy Sciences                                    Office of Science                                     U.S. Department of Energy

X-ray and Neutron Scattering Facilities

Scientific User Facilities Division

This Division supports the operation of four synchrotron radiation light sources and three neutron scattering facilities.  These are: 

•      Advanced Light Source (ALS) at LBNL

•      Advanced Photon Source (APS) at ANL

•      National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at BNL

•      Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) at SLAC

•      High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at ORNL

•      Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at ORNL

•      Manuel Lujan Jr. Neutron Scattering Center (LUJAN) at LANL

Under construction is the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, which is a free-electron laser designed to provide laser-like radiation in the hard x-ray region of the spectrum and with peak power and peak brightness greater than any existing coherent x-ray light source.  Also under construction is the National Synchrotron Light Source-II (NSLS-II) at BNL, a new synchrotron light source designed to deliver synchrotron radiation with ultra-high brightness and intensity, and exceptional stability, in order to enable the study of materials with nanoscale resolution (e.g., with instruments capable of a spatial resolution of 1 nanometer and an energy resolution of 0.1 millielectron volts).

The synchrotron radiation light sources and the neutron scattering facilities are the most advanced facilities of their kind in the world.  Together, they serve more than 7,000 users annually from academia, national laboratories, and industry, a number that has more than tripled in the past decade and that can more than double again in the next decade as current facilities and those under construction are fully instrumented.  These light sources and neutron scattering sources represent the largest collection of such facilities operated by a single organization in the world.  Conception, design, construction, and operation of these facilities, which in current costs are in the hundreds of millions to in excess of a billion dollars, are among the core competencies of the BES program.

For more information about the x-ray and neutron scattering facilities, please contact Dr. Pedro Montano.  

Click here for more information on all of the facilities described above and on other BES-supported facilities.