Sirius, at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) in Campinas, is one of the world’s first fourth-generation storage rings and the only synchrotron in Latin America — a national source of exceptionally bright X-rays serving researchers across Brazil and beyond.
Sirius is operated by LNLS, part of the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM), a non-profit institution overseen by Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. As a fourth-generation, diffraction-limited machine, it concentrates its electron beam into an extremely small, coherent spot, producing X-rays bright enough for high-resolution imaging and the most demanding spectroscopy. Researchers apply for beam time and travel to Campinas to run their experiments.
At a glanceFacility profile
- Location
- Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
- Operator
- Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), part of CNPEM
- Type
- Fourth-generation, diffraction-limited synchrotron
- Energy
- 3 GeV
- Beam current
- 350 mA in top-up mode (design)
- Beamlines
- 10 in operation, with more in commissioning
- First user call
- 2022
- Website
- lnls.cnpem.br
The scienceWhat researchers do here
Sirius hosts beamlines for macromolecular crystallography, X-ray nanoscopy, coherent and time-resolved scattering, spectroscopy and diffraction under extreme conditions, infrared micro- and nanospectroscopy, and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering. This breadth supports work in areas strategic to Brazil’s development — from agriculture, biofuels and tropical disease to energy materials and the geosciences. Its first official call for proposals, in 2022, drew hundreds of submissions from scientists across many countries and Brazilian states, marking the start of full operations.
Latin America’s only synchrotron: a fourth-generation source where scientists apply for time, then travel to Campinas to study matter in extraordinarily bright X-ray light.
From UVX to SiriusA national investment
From 1997 to 2019, LNLS operated UVX, the first synchrotron light source in the Southern Hemisphere, whose 1.37 GeV ring served around a thousand researchers a year with high reliability. Sirius is its successor — a far larger, fourth-generation machine that places Brazil among the small group of countries running a world-class light source.
Access for researchers
The open facilities of LNLS serve Brazilian and international researchers. Calls for research proposals are announced twice a year, one per semester, through the laboratory’s online user portal, with allocation by peer review.