SLS – Swiss Light Source
The Swiss Light Source (SLS) is an X-ray synchrotron facility that has been operational since 2001. A comprehensive upgrade to a diffraction-limited ring was initiated in October 2023 and completed at the end of 2024. Currently new and upgraded beamlines are being commissioned in three phases. The upgrade ensures that research in photon science conducted at PSI remains at the forefront of rapid developments in medicine, bio- and pharmaceutical technologies, chemistry, physics, materials and advanced manufacturing.
Following the modernisation project, designated SLS 2.0, novel research and more precise investigations are now facilitated. With the implementation of this technical overhaul, SLS will continue to be positioned in the top tier of international synchrotron light sources.
Current operation status
Latest Scientific Highlights and News
Imaging electrical switching of ultraefficient memory devices
SLS illuminates how electrical switching in layered materials works
Designing antiferromagnetic domains by stretching membranes in STXM
Researchers from an international collaboration between the United Kingdom and Switzerland have performed imaging of an antiferromagnetic iron oxide membrane using soft X-ray microscopy. By stretching the membranes using a gas cell, the team investigated the modification of domain structures under strain.
X-raying auditory ossicles – a new technique reveals structures in record time
Using a bone, PSI researchers have demonstrated how the structures of biological materials can be determined on scales from nanometres to millimetres in a very short time.
