Planning a New Era of Discovery with the Upgraded Advanced Light Source

Scientists around the world use the focused beams of light generated by the Advanced Light Source (ALS) synchrotron to study molecules and materials with atomic precision — yielding fundamental insights into fields ranging from physics to biology and enabling the development of new technologies in microelectronics, energy storage, pharmaceuticals, catalysis, quantum computing, and more. Since it became operational in 1993, the ALS, a DOE Office of Science user facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has served as the nation’s top destination for soft X-ray science as well as a leading facility for ultraviolet, infrared, and hard X-ray wavelengths. It has been cited in more than 18,000 papers, including foundational work for five Nobel prizes. 

But after 30 years of continuous operation and enhancements, the ALS has reached its performance limits. We’re leveling up the facility using new advances in light source technology to ensure that DOE scientists and our collaborators have access to unmatched experimental capabilities for the next era of discovery. This project has been underway for nearly a decade and has hit major milestones. The teams are making great progress toward a targeted completion in 2029.

Once the upgrade is complete, the ALS will deliver beams of soft X-rays that are more focused and at least 100-times brighter than the current ALS. This fantastically versatile type of light allows scientists to probe the chemical, magnetic, and electronic properties of samples, revealing how electrons in materials behave and how chemical reactions unfold in real time. By pointing more light into a smaller area and improving how the photons within the beams are organized — a property called coherence — the upgraded facility will provide more detailed and precise data and significantly enhance its ability to study changes in matter.