Lightsource Legacy at UW Madison
Just as there are several different types of lamps for everyday use, there are several different types of machines that produce light for use in scientific research. A "synchrotron" is one type, a "storage ring" that produces light by whirling electrons around a track.
The first machine ever to be dedicated for light-enabled research purposes, Tantalus, was built at UW Madison in 1968. Tantalus was decommissioned and sent to the Smithsonian and in 1987 was replaced by the current ring, Aladdin (located at the Synchrotron Radiation Center) at UW Madison which annually welcomes nearly 300 researchers from all over the world to pursue answers to their research problems. At SRC researchers set up their experiments at the end of research stations, called "beamlines" (in blue at right).
And now, over 40 years after the commissioning of Tantalus, it is time for a new machine. Thanks to this historic commitment to lightsources and wealth of knowledge and expertise of accelerator engineering, the University of Wisconsin-Madison in unison with colleagues from MIT is uniquely prepared to pursue such a groundbreaking and monumental project as designing and building a free electron laser.
