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Canadian Light Source (CLS) Synchrotron
What is the Canadian Light Source?
Saskatoon is home to Canada's only synchrotron research facility and one of the biggest national scientific projects in three decades. The Canadian Light Source Inc. is lighting the way into a new era of science and innovation for academic, government and industrial research in Canada. The structure creates beams of light that are millions of times brighter than sunlight and act as a "super microscope." The light beams are guided into workstations where they are capable of isolating the microscopic nature of matter down to the level of an atom.
Officially opened in October 2004, the $174-million Canadian Light Source (CLS) synchrotron is part of a new class of synchrotron light sources in the world. It enables Canada's synchrotron light users – in fields as diverse as biology, chemistry, geology, materials science, physics and medicine – to compete internationally. Using powerful magnets and radio frequency waves, the synchrotron accelerates electrons to nearly the speed of light, producing intense light beams for probing matter with unprecedented precision. It creates endless research opportunities across industrial, economic and social fields. With this high-tech tool, scientists will be able to design new drugs and medical treatments, improve food products, manufacture more powerful microchips and discover ways to clean up the environment.
What's the WD connection?
Photo credit: Canadian Light Source Inc., University of Saskatchewan Western Economic Diversification Canada acted as a catalyst for the project, contributing over $29 million and helping bring together a consortium that includes the Saskatchewan, Ontario and Alberta governments, the City of Saskatoon, academia and industry.
Other federal partners include the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the National Research Council, Natural Resources Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
What's been accomplished?
An estimated 500 jobs were created through the five-year construction of the CLS. The CLS has focused the efforts of 38 universities from across the country, major industry partners and three levels of government. The facility currently operates seven beamlines and seven others are already under construction.
The national synchrotron facility welcomed its first researcher from an outside agency, Dr. Allen Pratt of Natural Resources Canada's CANMET Mining and Mineral Sciences Laboratories in Ottawa in May 2005. Dr. Pratt is using x-rays from one of the synchrotron's beamlines to study the minerals chalcopyrite and pyrite - commonly known as fool's gold. He is investigating how to more effectively separate these two minerals and real gold from raw ore during processing.
What's on the horizon?
Until now, Canada's synchrotron scientists have had to travel outside of the country to collect their data, lining up at overbooked synchrotrons in, for example, Europe and the United States.
When the facility reaches full capacity, more than 200 scientists, technicians and operational staff will work at the CLS and more than 2,000 academic and industrial researchers a year from across Canada and from other countries are expected to use the facility.
With its focus on public-private partnerships and its availability to industrial researchers, the CLS is unique in the world. Its target for industrial usage will be 25 per cent. Typically, synchrotrons primarily serve universities and government institutions with only about 10 per cent industrial usage.
The CLS promises major research breakthroughs in disciplines from the basic sciences of chemistry, physics, geology and biochemistry to the applied sciences of genomics, global warming, engineering, radiology and medicine, and will contribute to strengthening Canada's scientific leadership as well as making Canada one of the most innovative countries in the world.
Key Contact
Western Economic Diversification Canada
Communications Branch
P.O. Box 2025
Suite 601, S.J. Cohen Building, 119 4th Avenue South
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7K 3S7
Telephone: (306) 975-5475
1 888 338-WEST (9378)