Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL)

The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, is one of the oldest and most productive synchrotrons in the world — a high-brightness storage ring that has served the research community continuously since the 1970s.

The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource buildings at SLAC at twilight — The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

3 GeVElectron energy

24Operational beamlines

1,700Visiting researchers / year

1974First light

SSRL runs the SPEAR3 storage ring, a 3 GeV, high-brightness third-generation source that operates at 500 mA in top-off mode with low emittance and high reliability. Operated for the United States Department of Energy’s Office of Science by Stanford University, it is an open user facility: scientists from universities, industry and government apply for beam time and travel to SLAC to run experiments, free of charge for work they intend to publish. SSRL is also a major training ground, with most of its users early-career scientists.

At a glanceFacility profile

Location: Menlo Park, California, USA
Operator: Stanford University at SLAC, for the US Department of Energy
Type: Third-generation synchrotron (SPEAR3 storage ring)
Energy: 3 GeV
Beam current: 500 mA, top-off mode
Beamlines: 24 in operation
First light: 1974
Website: www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu

The scienceWhat researchers do here

SSRL’s extremely bright X-rays let scientists study the world at the atomic and molecular level, with longstanding strengths in X-ray spectroscopy and protein crystallography. Researchers use the facility to advance energy production and storage, environmental remediation, catalysis, nanotechnology, new materials, structural biology and medicine. Half a century of operation has yielded tens of thousands of publications, a substantial share of them in the highest-impact journals.

A pioneer of synchrotron science, open to the world: scientists apply for time, then travel to SLAC to run experiments impossible in an ordinary laboratory.

Access for researchers

Standard proposals can be submitted three times a year, with separate deadlines for X-ray/VUV beamlines and for macromolecular crystallography. Details and current deadlines are published on the facility’s website.