Australian Synchrotron

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The Australian Synchrotron is a 3 GeV national synchrotron radiation facility located in Clayton, in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. The facility opened in 2007, and is operated by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.^[1][2]

ANSTO's Australian Synchrotron is a light source facility (in contrast to a collider), which uses particle accelerators to produce a beam of high energy electrons that are boosted to nearly the speed of light and directed into a storage ring where they circulate for many hours or even days at a time. As the path of these electrons are deflected in the storage ring by either bending magnets or insertion devices, they emit synchrotron light. The light is channelled to experimental endstations containing specialised equipment, enabling a range of research applications including high resolution imagery that is not possible under normal laboratory conditions.^[3]

ANSTO's Australian Synchrotron supports the research needs of Australia's major universities and research centres, and businesses ranging from small-to-medium enterprises to multinational companies. During 2014–15 the Australian Synchrotron supported more than 4,300 researcher visits and close to 1,000 experiments in areas such as medicine, agriculture, environment, defence, transport, advanced manufacturing and mining.^[4]

In 2015, the Australian Government announced a ten-year, A$520 million investment in operations through ANSTO, Australia's Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation .^[5][6] A 1.5 MW solar power system on the roof is expected to save $2 million in electricity costs over 5 years.^[7]

In 2020, it was used to help map the molecular structure of the COVID-19 virus, during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.^[8]