National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)

The National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, is one of the newest and brightest synchrotrons in the world — a medium-energy storage ring delivering exceptionally stable, intense X-ray beams to more than a thousand researchers a year.

NSLS-II is a state-of-the-art, medium-energy electron storage ring designed for world-leading brightness and an extremely stable beam. Operated for the United States Department of Energy’s Office of Science, it is an open user facility: researchers from universities, industry and government apply for beam time and travel to Brookhaven to run their experiments, free of charge for work they intend to publish. Its beamlines span the spectrum from infrared light to hard X-rays.

At a glanceFacility profile

Location

Upton, Long Island, New York, USA

Operator

Brookhaven National Laboratory, for the US Department of Energy

Type

Third-generation, medium-energy synchrotron

Energy

3 GeV

Beam current

500 mA

Beamlines

29 in operation, with more under construction

First light

2015

Website

bnl.gov/nsls2

The scienceWhat researchers do here

The exceptional brightness and stability of NSLS-II let scientists study materials with nanoscale resolution and great sensitivity, often under realistic, in-operando conditions — a battery while it cycles, a catalyst while it works, a thin film while it grows. The facility combines high-resolution X-ray imaging with spectroscopy and scattering, so a single visit can attack a problem with several complementary techniques. Research ranges across condensed-matter and materials physics, chemistry, energy science and structural biology.

A national facility open to the world: scientists apply for time, then travel to Brookhaven to run experiments that would be impossible in an ordinary laboratory.