The upgrade of the SLS to a diffraction-limited storage ring (DLSR) will benefit in particular those experimental techniques that exploit coherence and/or beam collimation and tight focussing. The increased coherent fraction, of the order of several percent in the hard x-ray regime, will greatly enhance phase-contrast tomography and lensless-imaging techniques such as ptychography; the ability to focus down to micron dimensions while maintaining excellent collimation will allow the investigation of proteins that only form micro- and nanocrystals, most notably membrane proteins and G-coupled protein receptors (GCPRs).