Future Looks Bright for Table-Top Synchrotron

Nature, 3 Mar 2005 A Japanese company has developed a synchrotron light source small enough to fit in a laboratory -- although the handy technology comes at a hefty price. Synchrotrons produce X-rays that can be used to probe the structure of materials. Their unwieldy size means that scientists must travel to large facilities and wait their turn to use the rays for their experiments. Researchers have come up with theories on how to shrink the device (see Nature 428, 789; 2004), and now a working miniature is available for sale -- the MIRRORCLE-6X, manufactured by the Photon Production Laboratory of Shiga, Japan. With a storage-ring diameter of 60 centimetres, the whole machine easily fits in a lab, and generates X-rays of up to a few mega-electronvolts using a novel electron-injection technology. Large facilities, whose synchrotrons are tens to hundreds of metres across, typically produce rays of about the same energy. At roughly US$2.5 million a piece, the MIRRORCLE-6X is unlikely to find its way into most laboratories any time soon. But Hironari Yamada, who helped to develop the machine at the Ritsumeikan University in Shiga, says that private businesses -- from semiconductor manufacturers to pharmaceuticals producers -- are lining up to buy the device.