PULS UK Powers the UK’s National Synchrotron Facility

Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility, has chosen PULS power supplies to provide power for ten advanced ‘beamlines’ to be built at Harwell in Oxfordshire during the next six years. This is the latest phase of Diamond’s development and is planned to bring the total number of beamlines in operation to 32 by 2017. PULS UK has been involved in the project since 2004 when there was a requirement for a high-reliability Din Rail power supply to deliver power to 600 corrector units.

Beamlines generate brilliant beams of light from infrared to X-rays and are used for a wide range of scientific and industrial research disciplines including structural biology, physics, chemistry, materials science and environmental sciences. The technology allows scientists to study objects such as molecules and atoms which are too small to be viewed using optical microscopes.

PULS power supplies provide 24v n+1 high-reliability control power to the large numbers of diverse pieces of equipment that go together to create a beamline. These are used to provide control, protection and instrumentation for various applications that make up a large part of the 22 beamlines’ control structure. As well as this, they also provide bulk DC power for the 700 steering power supplies used to trim the electron beam around the ring as they travel at speeds approaching the speed of light.

Colin Abraham, Senior Power Supply Technician at Diamond Light said, “We applied rigorous cost testing and performance criteria to a number of manufacturers’ products before making a decision to use PULS power supplies. They were chosen because they met our stringent selection criteria.”

About PULS UK Ltd

PULS UK is a specialist manufacturer of DIN Rail power supplies and has developed some of the most advanced technologies for use within power supplies allowing them to achieve the highest efficiencies. PULS UK is a subsidiary of PULS GmbH, based in Munich, Germany. With three factories it is the second largest producer of DIN Rail power supplies in the world.

About synchrotrons

A synchrotron is a huge scientific machine designed to produce very intense beams of x-rays, infrared and ultraviolet light, called synchrotron light.
X-rays, infrared and ultraviolet light are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Visible light is the small range of the electromagnetic spectrum that the human eye can detect.

Our eyes can distinguish between millions of different colours of visible light, each colour having a different wavelength. However, there is a huge range of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can’t see directly: radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, ultraviolet light, x-rays and gamma rays.

For centuries scientists have used microscopes to study things that are too small to see with the naked eye. However, microscopes are limited by the wavelength of the light that they use. Optical microscopes can be used to study objects that are a few microns (0.001mm) in size, about the size of cells. However, to study smaller objects like molecules and atoms, we need to use light with shorter wavelengths like X-rays.

Diamond Light Source can generate synchrotron light from infrared through the visible range and ultraviolet up to X-rays. Synchrotron light can be as much as 100 billion times brighter than the sun. This allows scientists to study samples in incredible detail, to a level that is only possible at a synchrotron.

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This release was published on openPR.