SOLEIL


SOLEIL is a synchrotron facility near Paris, France. It performed its first acceleration of electrons on May 14, 2006. The name SOLEIL is a backronym for Source optimisée de lumière d’énergie intermédiaire du LURE, LURE meaning Laboratoire pour l'utilisation du rayonnement électromagnétique.
The facility is run by a civil corporation held by the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, two French national research agencies. It is located in Saint-Aubin in the Essonne département, a south-western suburb of Paris, near Gif-sur-Yvette and Saclay, which host other facilities for nuclear and particle physics.
The facility is an associate member of the University of Paris-Saclay.
SOLEIL also hosts , a joint CNRS / French Ministry of Culture and Communication research unit.
SOLEIL covers fundamental research needs in physics, chemistry, material sciences, life sciences, earth sciences, and atmospheric sciences. It offers the use of a wide range of spectroscopic methods from infrared to X-rays, and structural methods such as X-ray diffraction and diffusion.

Main parameters

SOLEIL contains electrons travelling with an energy of 2.75 GeV around a 354 m circumference. It takes the electrons 1.2 μs to travel around this ring at almost the speed of light; 847,000 times per second.