China's High Energy Photon Source completes storage ring linkage

BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The entire storage ring of China's high-energy synchrotron radiation light source in Beijing's suburban Huairou District has recently been completed and linked, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP).

The light source, the High Energy Photon Source (HEPS), was built by IHEP and is a major science infrastructure project in China.

Researchers will commission the storage ring beam following inter-system commissioning, IHEP said.

HEPS is similar to a supersized X-ray machine. It has the ability to accelerate electrons through three stages to emit synchrotron radiation X-rays, which have strong penetrability and a high level of brightness, allowing researchers to observe microcosms.

Three separate accelerators -- a linear accelerator, a booster and a storage ring -- form the accelerator complex of HEPS.

The linear accelerator and booster have both passed scientific and technical performance acceptance reviews organized by the HEPS Project Management Department, accelerating electron beam energy from 500 MeV (megaelectron volts) to 6 GeV (gigaelectron-volts). All parameters reached or exceeded design specifications, and the overall performance of the linear accelerator and booster has reached a globally advanced level.

The storage ring is the core component of HEPS, and is used to store high-energy, high-quality electron beams and emit synchrotron X-rays. HEPS is the third-largest light source accelerator in the world and the largest in China.

It is expected to become one of the brightest fourth-generation synchrotron radiation facilities in the world once its construction is completed, and it will serve such fields as advanced materials, aerospace and biomedicine.