Skip to main content
  • Paul Scherrer Institut PSI
  • PSI Research, Labs & User Services

Digital User Office

  • Digital User Office
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)
Search
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)

Hauptnavigation

  • Research at PSIOpen mainmenu item
    • Research Initiatives
    • Ethics and Research integrity
    • Scientific Highlights
    • Scientific Events
    • Scientific Career
    • PSI-FELLOW
    • PSI Data Policy
  • Research Divisions and LabsOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Research with Neutrons and Muons
    • Photon Science
    • Energy and Environment
    • Nuclear Energy and Safety
    • Biology and Chemistry
    • Scientific Computing, Theory and Data
    • Large Research Facilities
  • Facilities and InstrumentsOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Large Research Facilities
    • Facilities
    • PSI Facility Newsletter
  • PSI User ServicesOpen mainmenu item
    • User Office
    • Methods at the PSI User Facilities
    • Proposals for beam time
    • Proposal Deadlines
    • Data Analysis Service (PSD)
    • EU support programmes
  • New ProjectsOpen mainmenu item
    • SLS 2.0
    • IMPACT
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR

Digital User Office (mobile)

  • Digital User Office

You are here:

  1. PSI Home
  2. Labs & User Services
  3. GFA
  4. About GFA
  5. Accelerator Operation and Development

Secondary navigation

Large Research Facilities (GFA)

  • About GFA Expanded submenu item
    • People
    • Accelerator Operation and Development Expanded submenu item
    • Electronics and Control Systems
    • Accelerator Technology
  • Operated Facilities
    • Operation Reports
  • Scientific Highlights
  • Publications
    • Publications 2022
    • Publications 2021
    • Publications 2020
    • Publications 2019
    • Publications 2018
    • Publications 2017
    • Publications 2016
    • Publications 2015
    • Publications 2014 and earlier
  • Projects
  • CHART
  • Workshops
    • Workshops and Conferences Archiv
  • GFA Events at PSI
    • Events Archive
ASAheader.jpg

Department of Accelerator Operation and Development (ASA)

Together with other departments at PSI, the Accelerator Operation and Development department runs, maintains, repairs, and improves the PSI accelerator complex. It consists of four facilities: HIPA, SLS, PROSCAN, and SwissFEL. During beam operation, the control room is manned 24 hours a day in three shifts and has full control over the beams.

HIPA, the High Intensity Proton Accelerator, provides the primary beams to PSI's versatile experimental facilities which in turn provide high intensity muons, pions, and neutrons for research. The department has expertise in cyclotron technology and on the creation and transport of high intensity proton beams since 1974, and holds the world record for beam power extracted from a proton cyclotron.

The Swiss Light Source (SLS) started user operation in 2001. It is an electron storage ring that runs at a constant beam current (Top-up) and delivers synchrotron radiation (X-rays) simultaneous to 16 experiments, each highly specialized for specific applications (Tomography, protein crystallography, lithography, etc.). The unique characteristic of the SLS is its stability: the beam is stabilised to better than one micrometre to allow to focus the X-ray beam with a height of about ten micrometre on very small samples.

In the more compact super-conducting COMET accelerator, proton beams are created since 2007 especially for the treatment of cancer patients in the PROSCAN facility. In three Gantries the proton beam rotates around the patient to precisely target the tumour with excellent recovery rates. OPTIS is specialized for ocular tumours and is recognized around the world.

The newest facility is SwissFEL, a free-electron laser, which utilizes a highly efficient C-band linear accelerator and short-period in-vacuum undulator magnets to produce femtosecond light pulses of highest intensities in the hard x-ray regime. This enables researchers to study very fast processes (e.g. catalytic chemical reactions) on an atomic scale.
 


Sidebar

Contact

Accelerator Operation and Development
WBGB/126
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland

Daniela Kiselev
Head of Department
+41 56 310 30 37
daniela.kiselev@psi.ch

Barbara Ajmo
Secretariat
+41 56 310 3382
barbara.ajmo@psi.ch


Accelerator Status

  • HIPA-Status
  • Proscan-Status
  • SLS-Status
  • SwissFEL-Status

GFA Open positions

Current opening at Large Research Facilities Division

top

Footer

Paul Scherrer Institut

Forschungsstrasse 111
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland

Telephone: +41 56 310 21 11
Telefax: +41 56 310 21 99

How to find us
Contact

Visitor Centre psi forum
School Lab iLab (in German)
Center for Proton Therapy
PSI Education Centre
PSI Guest House
PSI Gastronomie (in German)
psi forum shop

Service & Support

  • Phone Book
  • User Office
  • Accelerator Status
  • PSI Publications
  • Suppliers
  • E-Billing
  • Computing
  • Safety (in German)

Career

  • Working at PSI
  • Job Opportunities
  • Training and further education
  • Career Center
  • Vocational Training (in German)
  • PSI Education Center

For the media

  • PSI in brief
  • Facts and Figures
  • Media corner
  • Media Releases
  • Social Media

Follow us: Twitter (in English) LinkedIn Youtube Facebook Instagram Issuu RSS

Footer legal

  • Imprint
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Editors' login