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.
Access for researchers
Standard (General User) beam time is awarded through peer review across three cycles a year, with proposal deadlines of 31 January, 31 May and 30 September; general-user proposals are valid for one year. Additional access routes are described on the facility’s website.