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" Yesterday, dignitaries, scientists and politicians gathered at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island to celebrate the official groundbreaking of a science lab that promises to produce beams of light small enough to aim at resolutions of one nanometer, or one billionth of a meter. (For scale, the skin of a soap bubble is several hundred nanometers thick.) The celebratory groundbreaking of the National Synchrotron Light Source II occurred in a tent next to a muddy field where a ring with a half-mile circumference will be built. Inside, electrons will spin almost at the speed of light, steered by massive magnets. The radiation that this creates is shed as X-ray, ultraviolet and infrared light, focused in beams that researchers will use to illuminate their experiments. When the $912 million facility is completed, it will be the world&amp;#039;s most brilliant light source. On the other side of the muddy field is the original National Synchrotron Light Source, where, 24 hours a day, six days a week, scientists plumb the depths of the ultrasmall, looking into chemical catalytic reactions in engines, the infiltration of the HIV virus through healthy cellular membranes, nano self-assembly techniques and superconductors. Researchers from around the world fight for space at the lab, staying in dorm-style housing as they prepare their experiments. Of course, the question was raised: With a healthy, successful lab already running, why does the U.S. need a new near-billion-dollar laser? In short, researchers need brighter, more focused light. Brighter light means experiments will take less time, allowing more people to use the facility, and the new accelerator will be 10,000 times brighter than the original. Furthermore, about 75 experiments will be able to occur simultaneously at NSLS II. The beams will also be focused more tightly, so that the system can achieve that single-nanometer resolution. Qun Shen, the division director for experimental facilities at Brookhaven, says this will be the highest resolution system yet, beating the current record of 16-nanometer spatial resolution. (A Japanese research team recently achieved 10 nanometers, but only in a single dimension.) New detectors must be designed to see things at this level.  The current facility is not able to handle the sensitivity of 1-nanometer work, Shen says. The new facility will be built from the ground up with the aim of preventing vibrations, which can skew results. This will include insulating research rooms from noise, air currents and electronic interference. To keep the scientists cool without air blowers, the designers are considering water-cooled wall panels, he says. To build power and achieve this epic brightness, the accelerator will shoot the beams of light through a series of magnets with alternating poles, causing the beams to curve up and down. Every time a beam bends, it amplifies the light. Most beamlines of the National Synchotron Light Source steer electrons along gentle curves to produce light. More modern particle accelerators use &amp;quot;wigglers&amp;quot; to boost the brilliance of the light--NSLS II will have more than 30 of these undulating beam lines, each of which will achieve unprecedented strength. The NSLS II&amp;#039;s approach also allows for the gaps between the alternating magnets to be adjusted, which changes the wavelength--a boon to researchers who need to examine things at specific wavelengths. NSLS II was approved for construction in December 2008, and earlier this year the Obama administration allocated an extra $150 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to build the facility.  RELATED STORIES * EARLIER: A Particle Accelerator Hotter than the Sun  * ANALYSIS: Could the Large Hadron Collider Create a Black Hole?  * FOLLOW US: Popular Mechanics is Now on Twitter!  * FRIEND US: Find PM on Facebook   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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