Sci-tech facility attracts widespread attention

Browsing through social networks, there are various posts from those able to conduct experiments or even visit the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Zhangjiang of Pudong New Area, with their excitement readily apparent.

Indeed, the nautilus-shaped large sci-tech infrastructure that reveals the mysteries of the microscopic world has become a landmark in Pudong. But of course, it is doing much more than merely providing aesthetic value. Frontier research on virus structures, paleontological fossil evolution and metal fatigue testing of aircraft engine blades, among others, can be conducted here as the luminescence of the light emitted at the facility is much stronger than that of ordinary X-rays.

As the first third-generation synchrotron light source in the Chinese mainland, which opened to users in May 2009, the facility has been used by more than 60,000 researchers from about 700 research institutions and companies, supporting over 20,000 projects. It has thus set a record in China in terms of the number of users and output by a large scientific facility.