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Swiss Light Source - SLS
COVID-19: SLS is in full 24/7 user operation
The SLS is in full 24/7 user operation with safety measures against COVID-19 infections in place. Currently international business travel is still restricted and thus not all users can reach Switzerland. Please see below or on the user office pages further information entitled 'Important information for SLS and SwissFEL users'.
The Swiss Light Source (SLS) at the Paul Scherrer Institut is a third-generation synchrotron light source. With an energy of 2.4 GeV, it provides photon beams of high brightness for research in materials science, biology and chemistry.
SLS is part of the Photon Science Division. The facility has world-leading instruments at its beamlines for unraveling the structure of proteins, for in-depth 3D imaging of matter, and for investigating how the electrons of atoms and molecules keep matter together and render it properties such as magnetism and electron conduction at zero resistance (‘superconductivity’).
- The beamlines for protein structure determination are intensively used by pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland and abroad. SLS is also leading in the development of pixelated X-ray detectors. The company DECTRIS has been spun off from these activities.
- In something as complex as a human being structures and processes occur on all length scales from macroscopic down to atomic dimensions. The SLS host a variety of techniques to address problems on different length scales.
- Materials with new, functional properties are the scope of intense research, since they offer fascinating insights into fundamental interactions and hold promise for advanced technologies which is highly needed. The SLS host world-leading capability in advanced materials spectroscopy ranging from photoemission spectroscopy, over spectromicroscopy to different X-ray absorption, scattering and diffraction techniques.
- A further focus is to provide advanced micro- and nanofabrication technologies to academic and industrial users, in particular in the area of polymer nanotechnology.
Current operation status
Latest Scientific Highlights and News
How catalysts age
Catalysts used in industry change their material structure over the years. Using a new method, PSI researchers have now studied this on the nanoscale.
Crystal structure of SARS-CoV-2 Orf9b in complex with human TOM70 suggests unusual virus-host interactions
In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers at the NHC Key Laboratory of Systems Biology of Pathogens in Beijing, China, in collaboration with the Paul Scherrer Institut characterize the interactions of SARS-CoV-2 orf9b and human TOM70 biochemically, and they determine the 2.2 Å crystal structure of the TOM70 cytosolic domain with a bound SARS-CoV-2 orf9b peptide.
A "magical" power with major impact
Microrobots, materials with shape memory, and better particle accelerators are made possible through the exploration of magnetism at PSI.
