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

X-ray and Neutron Scattering Facilities

Division of Scientific User Facilities

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

•      Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS) at ANL

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

Under construction is the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is a next-generation short-pulse spallation neutron source that will be significantly more powerful than the best spallation neutron source now in existence -- ISIS at the Rutherford Laboratory in England.  On the drawing board is the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, which is a free-electron laser that will provide laser-like radiation in the x-ray region of the spectrum that is 10 orders of magnitude greater in peak power and peak brightness than any existing coherent x-ray light source.

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.