According to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) news, the world’s most advanced light source, the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) was successfully completed. A grand dedication ceremony was held on Feb. 6, 2015 to celebrate the event.

Many VIPs from the U.S. government and congress presented at the ceremony. “The successful completion of this crucial component of the United States’ research infrastructure will ensure that top researchers from across the country will have access to the needed facilities to drive key scientific and technological advances in the 21st century.” said  DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz.

According to the news, NSLS-II is a $912-million DOE Office of Science User Facility that produces extremely bright beams of x-ray, ultraviolet, and infrared light used to examine a wide range of materials, including superconductors and catalysts, geological samples, and biological proteins to accelerate advances in energy, environmental science, and medicine.   The project planning, design, and construction spanned 10 years, and when all beamlines are fully built out, it will be able to support thousands of scientific users each year.

A Brief Introduction on NSLS-II

As a DOE Office of Science User Facility, NSLS-II will offer researchers from academia, industry, and national laboratories new ways to study material properties and functions with nanoscale resolution and extreme sensitivity using state-of-the-art x-ray imaging. The x-ray brightness at NSLS-II exceeds that of any other existing synchrotron light source in the world and has the capacity to operate 60 beamlines with a range of soft to hard x-rays.

Science programs planned at NSLS-II will play a crucial role in addressing grand challenges facing the nation and the world. NSLS-II will fuel major advances in materials that will enable new energy technologies – such as nanocatalyst-based fuel cells; widespread, economical use of solar energy; high-temperature superconductors for the nation’s electric grid to deliver more electricity more efficiently; advanced batteries for electric vehicles and grid-scale storage; and next-generation nuclear power systems.

As was the case at NSLS, a large portion of scientific users at NSLS-II are expected to be life scientists, using the powerful x-ray beams to explore the structures of proteins and other biological molecules. NSLS-II will be particularly well-suited to conduct studies of difficult-to-crystalize proteins found embedded in cellular membranes, such as those that form the receptors for viral invasions, interactions with hormones and other signaling molecules, and key agents of the body’s immune system. Structural studies of such proteins are increasingly important in the design of new drugs and therapies—an area where NSLS-II is poised to play an essential role.

Construction and operations of NSLS-II are supported by the DOE Office of Science.