SOLEIL ("Sun" in
French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
) 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
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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
References
External links
*
Official website
Official website
LURE website
Lightsources.orgOfficial website of IPANEMA
Official website of IPANEMA
Synchrotron radiation facilities
Research institutes in France
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