The Early History and Personal Start-Up Stories of Synchrotron Radiation Research at Cornell University

Abstract

Synchrotron radiation (SR) research at Cornell University is presently carried out at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), a National X-ray Facility on the Cornell Electron/Positron Storage Ring (CESR), a machine mainly dedicated to X-ray production and supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Each year, over a thousand scientists and students use a dozen X-ray stations for multidisciplinary research in physics, chemistry, biology, environmental and materials sciences, and engineering on a machine typically operating with compact undulators at 5.3 GeV and 100 to 200 mA.