The Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York, is a high-intensity X-ray facility delivering some of the world’s brightest beams for research in physics, chemistry, biology, and the environmental and materials sciences.
CHESS draws its X-rays from the Cornell Electron Storage Ring, sharing the accelerator that has long served particle physics at the university. It is a national user facility: researchers from universities, industry and government laboratories apply for beam time and travel to Ithaca to run their experiments. Distinct research programmes within CHESS specialise in quantum and structural materials, structural metals, and the macromolecular crystallography and small-angle scattering used to understand the building blocks of life.
At a glanceFacility profile
- Location
- Ithaca, New York, USA
- Operator
- Cornell University, with US federal research funding
- Type
- High-energy synchrotron source on the Cornell Electron Storage Ring
- Energy
- 6 GeV
- Beamlines
- 7 in operation
- Website
- chess.cornell.edu
The scienceWhat researchers do here
CHESS combines very high X-ray energies with a strong tradition of method development, making it especially well suited to demanding experiments: imaging the strain and structure inside engineering alloys, following materials under high pressure or in working devices, and solving the structures of enzymes, viruses and other large biological assemblies. The mix of materials, metals and structural-biology programmes lets a single facility serve aerospace engineers and structural biologists alike.
A university-based national facility: scientists apply for time, then travel to Ithaca to use X-ray beams that no ordinary laboratory could provide.
A brighter machineThe CHESS-U upgrade
The CHESS-U project rebuilt a major section of the storage ring and, by operating with a single counter-rotating beam of positrons, allowed the accelerator to be optimised purely for X-ray production. The result is a marked boost in beam quality from the insertion devices feeding each beamline, giving CHESS users some of the brightest hard X-rays available anywhere.
Access for researchers
Proposals for beam time can be submitted three times a year and remain active for up to two years. Calls and deadlines are published on the facility’s website.