SOLEIL ("Sun" in French) is a

synchrotron A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The strength of the magnetic field which bends the particle beam i ...

facility near

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It performed its first acceleration of

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

s on May 14, 2006. The name ''SOLEIL'' is a

backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...

for ''Source Optimisée de Lumière d’Énergie Intermédiaire du LURE'' (LURE optimised intermediary energy light source), 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 The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 engi ...

(CNRS) and the

French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, or CEA ( French: Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives), is a French public government-funded research organisation in the areas of energy, defense and sec ...

(CEA), two French national research agencies. It is located in Saint-Aubin in the

Essonne Essonne () is a department in the southern part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is named after the river Essonne. In 2019, it had a population of 1,301,659, across 194 communes.département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 ...

, a south-western suburb of Paris, near

Gif-sur-Yvette Gif-sur-Yvette (, "Gif-on- Yvette") is a commune in southwestern Île-de-France, France. It is located in the Vallée de Chevreuse, from the centre of Paris (at Notre-Dame), in the Essonne department on the departmental border with Yvelin ...

and

Saclay Saclay () is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is best known for the large scientific facility CEA Saclay, mostly dealing with nuclear and particle physics. Population Inhabit ...

, which host other facilities for

nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

and

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

. The facility is an associate member of the

University of Paris-Saclay Paris-Saclay University (, ) is a combined Research institute, technological research institute and Public university, public research university in Orsay, France. Paris-Saclay was established in 2019 after the merger of four technical ''grandes ...

. SOLEIL also host
IPANEMA, the European research platform on ancient materials (archaeology, palaeontology, past environments and cultural heritage)
a joint CNRS / French Ministry of Culture and Communication research unit. SOLEIL covers fundamental research needs in physics, chemistry, material sciences, life sciences (notably in the crystallography of biological macromolecules), 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 scattering.

Main parameters

SOLEIL contains electrons travelling with an energy of 2.75

GeV In physics, an electronvolt (symbol eV), also written electron-volt and electron volt, is the measure of an amount of kinetic energy gained by a single electron accelerating through an electric potential difference of one volt in vacuum. When us ...

around a 354 m circumference. It takes the electrons 1.2

μs A microsecond is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one millionth (0.000001 or 10−6 or ) of a second. Its symbol is μs, sometimes simplified to us when Unicode is not available. A microsecond is to one second, ...

to travel around this ring at almost the speed of light; 847,000 times per second.

Most Cited Scientists at Synchrotron SOLEIL

According to Google Scholar, in 2024 this is the top 10 of most cited scientists of Synchrotron Soleil: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_org&hl=it&org=263278561682506461 * John Bozek Citations: 23,755 Research Areas: X-ray physics, synchrotron radiation, XFEL, chemical physics, ultrafast X-ray * Jose Avila Citations: 15,273 Research Areas: Not specified * Amina Taleb Ibrahimi Citations: 12,628 Research Areas: Condensed matter physics, low-dimensional systems * Timm Weitkamp Citations: 11,773 Research Areas: X-ray imaging, microtomography, X-ray microscopy, X-ray phase contrast imaging * Laurent Nahon Citations: 10,754 Research Areas: Chirality, circular dichroism, molecular photoionization, VUV spectroscopy, polarimetry *

Andrea Zitolo Andrea Zitolo OMRI (Pescina, born 1980) is an Italian French scientist (with habilitation - full professor status) and academic specialized in physical chemistry and material science. Life and career Zitolo, who was born in the Province of L'A ...

Citations: 8,535 Research Areas: Physical chemistry, Material sciences, materials for energy and hydrogen * Patrick Le Fèvre Citations: 8,187 Research Areas: Physics * François Bertran Citations: 7,977 Research Areas: Physics * Pavel Dudin Citations: 7,775 Research Areas: Band structure, materials science, topological insulators, graphene, superconductors * Pierre Legrand Citations: 7,706 Research Areas: Structural virology, nucleic acid-protein interaction, crystallography, tomography, synchrotron

Main parameters

Most Cited Scientists at Synchrotron SOLEIL

References

External links