Synchrotron light sources are among the most powerful scientific instruments ever built — football-stadium-sized machines that produce X-ray, ultraviolet and infrared beams millions of times brighter than the sun, used by tens of thousands of researchers every year. This directory introduces the major facilities operating around the world today.
More than fifty light sources are in operation or under construction across four continents. They share a common purpose — letting scientists see the structure of matter at the scale of atoms and molecules — but range from compact university machines to multi-kilometre national laboratories and the newest generation of X-ray free-electron lasers. Africa is the only inhabited continent without one yet; closing that gap is the reason this project exists.
Explore by regionLight sources around the world
Americas
Synchrotrons and free-electron lasers across the United States, Canada and Brazil — from the ALS and APS to Sirius and the SLAC X-ray lasers.
View facilitiesEurope & the Middle East
The densest cluster of light sources anywhere, including the ESRF, Diamond, SOLEIL, MAX IV, the European XFEL and the SESAME facility in Jordan.
View facilitiesAsia & Australia
Major facilities in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia — among them SPring-8, the Photon Factory, PAL-XFEL and the Australian Synchrotron.
View facilitiesAfrica
No operational light source exists yet. The African Light Source project is building the people, partnerships and case for the continent’s first.
Learn moreWhy this matters for Africa
Every region above has shown the same pattern: a home light source trains a generation of scientists, draws researchers back from abroad and seeds high-technology industry. The regional directories show just how far African researchers must travel today to reach the nearest beam.