The Lyncean Compact Light Source: The Cornerstone of a Local, Multi-discipline X-ray Facility

Synchrotron facilities around the globe are the supercomputers of X-ray science serving more than ten thousand researchers. The light emanating from these sources can be characterized as high flux, monochromatic, energy tunable and, in some cases, coherent.
There is an increasing need for small, locally owned and operated, multi-discipline, X-ray facilities that provide the flux and energy tunability that is required for many experiments, such as diffraction for weakly scattering samples, spectroscopy, or dynamic tomography.
The Lyncean Compact Light Source (CLS), the first commercially developed X-ray source specifically created to deliver a true home laboratory alternative to many experiments performed today at the large synchrotrons, is the cornerstone of such an X-ray facility. X-rays are produced in the CLS via inverse Compton scattering through the interaction of low energy electrons (25 to 45 MeV) in a miniature storage ring with a micrometer-wavelength, high powered laser pulse (laser-undulator) by Compton backscattering. Tunable, monochromatic, and high flux undulator synchrotron radiation is generated in the CLS "mini-synchrotron" as a result of the high repetition rate (~60MHz) of this interaction. Characteristics of the CLS X-ray beam are similar to those of a bending magnet synchrotron in terms of flux and coherence, and as such, similar synchrotron quality applications can be performed: imaging/tomography, diffraction, scattering, and spectroscopy.
In this presentation we will present the technology behind the Compact Light Source as well as examples of the measurements that have been made and that can be made in the future with the Lyncean Compact Light Source and our vision for distributed, small-scale, multi-discipline X-ray facilities around the globe.