Introduction
A Bird's eye view of SPring-8 taken on September 2011
Synchrotron radiation (SR) is extremely powerful light which is used for studying the structure of matter at the atomic and electronic levels and in various physical and chemical processes in a number of research fields ranging from materials science to life science.
SPring-8, which is the largest third-generation synchrotron radiation facility in the world, pro-vides the most powerful synchrotron radiation currently available. The Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI)＊ and RIKEN (the In-stitute of Physical and Chemical Research) started construction of SPring-8 in 1991, and with support from Hyogo Prefecture, universi-ties, research institutes and industry, com-pleted the construction and opened the facility in October 1997.
Since the completion of the facility, manage-ment, operation, upgrading of the facility, user
service, and R&D on SR science and technolo-gy have been performed by the Japan Syn-chrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI).
At SPring-8, many scientists from around the world are making efforts to unlock the secrets of nature using synchrotron radiation as the key.
＊JAERI was reorganized into the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) on October 1, 2005.
SPring-8 Storage Ring Parameters
| Electron energy | 8 GeV | Characteristic photon energy | 28.9 keV | |
| Current | 100 mA | Number of insertion devices | Max 38 | |
| Circumference | 1,436 m | Number of beamlines | Max 62 |