China is determined to build the first synchrotron light source in Asia. The country plans to build the next-generation synchrotron outside Beijing.
China To Build First Synchrotron Light Source in Asia
China is working on developing a $665-million High Energy Photon Source (HEPS), making the country among the select group of nations worldwide possessing fourth-generation synchrotron light sources, as it will be the first of its kind in Asia.
According to Pedro Fernandes Tavares, a scientist in charge of the accelerator division at one of HEPS's competitors for brightness, the MAX IV Laboratory, a synchrotron radiation facility in Lund, Sweden, "it will certainly be a state-of-the-art installation that will cater for outstanding science."
High-energy, or "hard," X-rays will be produced, allowing for the nanoscale probing of samples. Compared to third-generation synchrotrons, such as the 432-meter-circumference Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, China's most advanced working synchrotron, its time resolution will be 10,000 times more excellent. According to Ye Tao, a beamline scientist working on HEPS at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing, thanks to this, measurements may now be made in hundreds of nanoseconds rather than milliseconds.
When HEPS opens in 2025, researchers can choose from 14 beamlines to study energy, condensed matter physics, innovative materials, and biomedicine. HEPS is anticipated to support up to 90 beamlines in the future. Tao claims the circular facility will "impact every scientific field, except maths."
For example, scientists must purify the molecules and force them into X-ray-visible ordered crystal forms to see the atomic structure of proteins. According to Tavares, studying smaller protein crystals is practically impossible with older synchrotrons because they require big, hard-to-produce samples. However, the hard X-rays from HEPS will be strong enough to analyze even the most miniature samples in great detail. Additionally, researchers can quickly carry out experiments in the new synchrotron that would take days to complete at earlier facilities.
What Are HEPs?
High-Energy Photon Source (HEPS) is a high-performance, high-energy synchrotron radiation light source with an ultra-low emittance of less than 0.06 nm×rad and a beam energy of 6 GeV. The majority of HEPS are beamlines, terminal stations, and accelerators.
Following a sequence of refinements and applications of cutting-edge technologies, such as the pivotal technology that has achieved significant progress in the HEPS-TF project, HEPS is now globally cutting-edge and appropriate for the growth of Chinese user communities.
China's first light source for high-energy synchrotron radiation will be HEPS.
It will significantly advance China's scientific and technological advancements. This light source can potentially be vital to technical and industrial innovation breakthroughs.
In the interim, HEPS offers basic science researchers a cutting-edge, multidisciplinary experimental platform. Researchers will be able to observe complicated samples at HEPS under conditions similar to their real working environment, using faster, finer, and more sensitive experimental instruments.
As a result, scientists will have access to dynamic evolution processes and multidimensional, real-time, in-situ characterization of sample structure. Consequently, HEPS can aid in researchers' more precise understanding of matter in the dimensions of space, time, and energy, as well as at the level of molecules, atoms, electrons, and spin.
Thus, HEPS can offer a scientific foundation for resolving China's escalating resource, energy, environmental, and population-related problems.
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