The Brightest Light in Canada: The Canadian Light Source

Abstract

Over forty years in the making, and one of Canada’s largest scientific investments in those four decades, the Canadian Light Source (CLS), a third generation source of synchrotron light, was designed for high performance and flexibility and serves the diverse needs of the Canadian research community by providing brilliant light for applied and basic research programmes ranging from the far infrared to the hard X-ray regimes. Development of the scientific program at the CLS has been envisioned in four distinct phases. The first phase consists of the accelerator complex together with seven experimental facilities; the second phase adds six more experimental facilities and additional infrastructure to support them; the third phase adds seven more experimental facilities; and the fourth phase focuses on beamline and endstation upgrades, keeping the CLS as a state-of-the-art research centre. With the growth of a strong user community, the success of these experimental facilities will drive the future growth of the CLS.

Keywords

• synchrotron light
• beamlines
• X-rays
• infrared
• spectroscopy
• imaging