Synchrotron radiation—light fantastic

“Wouldn't it be interesting if these beautiful and sophisticated machines made their greatest contributions to science as light bulbs?” So queried Donald Kerst, inventor of the betatron, in speaking recently about the current generation of electron accelerators. Indeed, in the past ten years, many synchrotrons and storage rings have been very successfully used as light bulbs—to illumine the electronic and optical properties of gases, liquids and solids. Why have researchers gone to the trouble and expense of using synchrotron radiation from these facilities rather than staying at home with discharge lamps and x‐ray tubes? Because the synchrotron radiation has special characteristics that enable investigations to be done that would otherwise be impossible. It produces a highly collimated, continuous spectrum, which includes wavelengths not available from other sources, and it provides a narrow spectral slice of high intensity through monochromatization. These characteristics are obviously desirable for experiments that demand high resolution in space and in energy simultaneously. The wide range and high value of research done with synchrotron radiation to date would support an argument for the construction of a national facility intended especially as a radiation source and invite speculation about the design of such a facility.