TLS and TPS at National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC)

The National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC), in the Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan, operates two complementary synchrotron light sources — the long-serving Taiwan Light Source (TLS) and the high-brightness Taiwan Photon Source (TPS) — serving tens of thousands of researcher visits a year.

NSRRC is a non-profit national research organisation. The Taiwan Light Source, which opened to users in 1994, was the first third-generation synchrotron in Asia; the Taiwan Photon Source, in operation since 2016, is one of the brightest hard X-ray sources in the world. Together they offer a wide spread of beamlines, and the centre also operates two Taiwanese beamlines at SPring-8 in Japan.

At a glanceFacility profile

Location

Hsinchu, Taiwan

Operator

National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC)

Type

Two third-generation synchrotrons

Energy

1.5 GeV (TLS) and 3 GeV (TPS)

Circumference

120 m (TLS); 518.4 m (TPS)

Beam current

360 mA (TLS); 500 mA (TPS)

Beamlines

Around 22 on TLS and a growing number on TPS

First light

1994 (TLS); 2016 (TPS)

Website

nsrrc.org.tw

The scienceWhat researchers do here

The two rings are designed to complement one another. The Taiwan Light Source remains highly productive for vacuum-ultraviolet and soft X-ray work — spectroscopy of electronic and magnetic states, surface and interface chemistry — with around fifty experimental stations. The Taiwan Photon Source, with its low-emittance ring, excels at hard X-ray techniques such as protein crystallography, coherent imaging and high-resolution diffraction, opening synchrotron science to ever more fields, especially biomedicine and nanotechnology.

Two rings under one roof: a soft X-ray pioneer and a hard X-ray flagship, together serving researchers from Taiwan and around the world.