China's High Energy Photon Source targets trial run by end-2025

BEIJING -- The High Energy Photon Source (HEPS), China's flagship synchrotron radiation facility, is set to begin trial operations by the end of 2025, according to the project team.

A synchrotron radiation light source is a source of electromagnetic radiation usually produced by a storage ring.

As one of the country's key scientific and technological infrastructure projects, the HEPS is expected to become a fourth-generation synchrotron radiation facility featuring the world's highest brightness and will serve as a research platform for material science, chemical engineering, biomedicine and other fields, said the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, main developer of the HEPS.

It acts like a super-powered "X-ray microscope" to "see" the micro-world, the IHEP explained.

Located in Beijing's suburban Huairou District, the HEPS venture has achieved significant construction milestones since breaking ground in 2019. The facility comprises several parts -- including accelerators, beamlines, end stations and support facilities. All 15 planned Phase I beamlines have generated lights, Pan Weimin, director of the HEPS project, told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Once completed, the HEPS will ultimately accommodate up to 90 beamlines. Plans aim for 45 beamlines by 2030. The team is actively engaging with research institutes and industry to secure funding for continued beamline construction and gather critical experimental demands, said Pan.

China now possesses all four generations of such sources with the first and fourth generations both located in Beijing, the second-generation based in Hefei in East China's Anhui province and the third-generation in Shanghai.

The HEPS, as China's first high-energy fourth-generation source, promises to revolutionize research in fields like solid-state batteries, high-temperature superconductors and drug discovery -- via its unparalleled brightness and coherence.

The HEPS will leverage the experience gained from previous facilities and "focus on national strategic needs, industrial innovation and scientific frontiers," Pan said.