What is synchrotron radiation?
A synchrotron is a large machine (generally the size of a football field) that accelerates electrons to match the speed of light. As the electrons are pushed through magnetic fields they often result in creating extremely bright light. The light is then channeled to workshops to be studied and used for research purposes.
What is the Australian synchrotron and how is it used?
The Australian Synchrotron is like any synchrotron but is located in Australia in the state Victoria. The synchrotron light is used in many different ways for many different industries. Some of these industries include:
- Biosciences (protein crystallography and cell biology)
- Medical research (microbiology, disease mechanisms, high resolution imagining and cancer radiation therapy)
- Environmental sciences (atmospheric research, clean combustion and cleaner industrial production technologies)
- Agriculture (plant genomics, soil studies, animal and plant imaging)
- Minerals exploration (rapid analysis of drill core samples)
- Advanced materials (ceramics, light metals and alloys, electronic and magnetic materials)
- Engineering (high resolution imaging of cracks and defects in structures)
- Forensics (identification of suspects from extremely small and dilute samples)
How does a synchrotron work and differ from a normal light microscope?
The synchrotron accelerates electrons at the speed of light, which is a lot faster than any microscope would be able to achieve. Something called the booster ring is used to increase the energy and speed of the electrons before they are sent and stored in the storage ring. In the storage ring the electrons are guided by magnets that change the direction of the electrons. As the electrons are always moving around they are generating energy that is then transferred into light energy.
The synchrotron is different from an ordinary light microscopy because it accelerates the electrons to be the same as the speed of sound. This is beyond any light microscopes capability as the synchrotron is also a lot larger in size than a microscope giving it the advantage to convert more electrons in a smaller amount of time.
A synchrotron is a large machine (generally the size of a football field) that accelerates electrons to match the speed of light. As the electrons are pushed through magnetic fields they often result in creating extremely bright light. The light is then channeled to workshops to be studied and used for research purposes.
What is the Australian synchrotron and how is it used?
The Australian Synchrotron is like any synchrotron but is located in Australia in the state Victoria. The synchrotron light is used in many different ways for many different industries. Some of these industries include:
- Biosciences (protein crystallography and cell biology)
- Medical research (microbiology, disease mechanisms, high resolution imagining and cancer radiation therapy)
- Environmental sciences (atmospheric research, clean combustion and cleaner industrial production technologies)
- Agriculture (plant genomics, soil studies, animal and plant imaging)
- Minerals exploration (rapid analysis of drill core samples)
- Advanced materials (ceramics, light metals and alloys, electronic and magnetic materials)
- Engineering (high resolution imaging of cracks and defects in structures)
- Forensics (identification of suspects from extremely small and dilute samples)
How does a synchrotron work and differ from a normal light microscope?
The synchrotron accelerates electrons at the speed of light, which is a lot faster than any microscope would be able to achieve. Something called the booster ring is used to increase the energy and speed of the electrons before they are sent and stored in the storage ring. In the storage ring the electrons are guided by magnets that change the direction of the electrons. As the electrons are always moving around they are generating energy that is then transferred into light energy.
The synchrotron is different from an ordinary light microscopy because it accelerates the electrons to be the same as the speed of sound. This is beyond any light microscopes capability as the synchrotron is also a lot larger in size than a microscope giving it the advantage to convert more electrons in a smaller amount of time.