Synchrotron SOLARIS

SOLARIS, the National Synchrotron Radiation Centre in Krakow, is Poland’s first synchrotron and the only one in Central and Eastern Europe — a compact, low-emittance light source operated as part of the Jagiellonian University.

SOLARIS opened in September 2015 and to external users from 2018. Its 1.5 GeV storage ring, just 96 metres around, was developed in partnership with the Swedish MAX IV laboratory in Lund, whose innovative magnet design made it possible to achieve a very low beam emittance in a relatively small machine. By the start of 2024 the centre operated seven beamlines covering the ultraviolet to soft X-ray range, with further beamlines under construction in a new experimental hall.

At a glanceFacility profile

Location

Krakow, Poland

Operator

SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre, Jagiellonian University

Type

Third-generation synchrotron, UV to soft X-rays

Energy

1.5 GeV

Circumference

96 m

Beam current

500 mA

Beamlines

7 in operation, with more under construction

First light

Inaugurated 2015; open to users 2018

Website

synchrotron.uj.edu.pl

The scienceWhat researchers do here

SOLARIS specialises in spectroscopy and microscopy in the soft X-ray and infrared range. The PIRX beamline offers X-ray absorption spectroscopy and magnetic dichroism; URANOS and PHELIX provide angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES); DEMETER combines scanning transmission X-ray microscopy with photoemission electron microscopy; ASTRA delivers X-ray absorption spectroscopy; POLYX is a compact beamline for X-ray micro-imaging and microspectroscopy; and CIRI uses infrared radiation for chemical analysis at the microscale. The work ranges across quantum materials, surface science, chemistry, environmental science and the life sciences.

A regional first: SOLARIS opened synchrotron science to a whole part of Europe that had never had a light source of its own.

Growing capacityNew beamlines under construction

SOLARIS is expanding into a new experimental hall of around 2,000 square metres. Two further beamlines are being built: ARYA, for X-ray diffraction and small-angle X-ray scattering with a focus on protein crystallography, and SMAUG, a bending-magnet small-angle-scattering beamline working with hard X-rays in the 6–16 keV range. In total the beamlines are expected to host around twenty end-stations.