Editing Synchrotron light source (section)

{{Short description|Particle accelerator designed to produce intense x-ray beams}}
{{about|the laboratory production and applications of [[synchrotron radiation]]|details of physics of emission and properties|synchrotron radiation}}
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[[Image:SynchrotronLight.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Synchrotron radiation reflecting from a [[terbium]] crystal at the Daresbury [[Synchrotron Radiation Source]], 1990]]

A '''synchrotron light source''' is a source of [[electromagnetic radiation]] (EM) usually produced by a [[storage ring]],<ref>''Handbook on Synchrotron Radiation'', Volume 1a, Ernst-Eckhard Koch, Ed., North Holland, 1983, reprinted at "[http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/SRTurns50.html Synchrotron Radiation Turns the Big Five-O] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080916062040/http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/SRTurns50.html |date=September 16, 2008 }}</ref> for scientific and technical purposes.  First observed in [[synchrotron]]s, synchrotron light is now produced by storage rings and other specialized [[particle accelerator]]s, typically accelerating [[electron]]s. Once the high-energy electron beam has been generated, it is directed into auxiliary components such as [[bending magnet]]s and [[insertion device]]s ([[undulator]]s or [[wiggler (synchrotron)|wiggler]]s) in [[storage ring]]s and [[free electron laser]]s. 
These supply the strong magnetic fields perpendicular to the beam that are needed to stimulate the high energy electrons to emit [[photon]]s.

The major applications of synchrotron light are in [[condensed matter physics]], [[materials science]], [[biology]] and [[medicine]]. A large fraction of experiments using synchrotron light involve probing the structure of matter from the sub-[[nanometer]] level of [[electronic structure]] to the [[micrometre|micrometer]] and millimeter levels important in [[medical imaging]]. An example of a practical industrial application is the manufacturing of microstructures by the [[LIGA]] process.

Synchrotron is one of the most expensive kinds of light source known, but it is practically the only viable luminous source of wide-band radiation in far infrared wavelength range for some applications, such as far-infrared absorption spectrometry.