China’s new light sources prove it’s serious about funding science

Abstract

Government investment in basic scientific research leads to new products and stronger economic growth. Although this argument doesn’t work as well as it used to for scientists seeking public funding in Western countries and Japan, it still does wonders in China. There, funding for basic research is growing, largely on Beijing’s buy-in that it will be good for the economy. In Dalian, Chinese scientists unveiled earlier this month a new type of free-electron laser that generates extremely bright, short-wavelength light called vacuum ultraviolet. And in Beijing’s Huairou District, China is spending about $750 million on a state-of-the-art synchrotron that will help raise the country’s scientific capabilities and develop new products, Chinese scientists have told their government. Scheduled to start operating in 2023, the Huairou synchrotron will be a so-called fourth-generation low-emittance synchrotron with the ability to concentrate X-rays into the 10 nm range. The world’s first fourth-generation synchrotron started operating