A synchrotron produces very high-speed X-ray light beams that are focused on a selected sample. It interacts with atoms and molecules of the sample and the interactions are recorded using specialized detectors that are attached to computers. Special software has been designed to interpret the data that has been generated.
In the basic sciences, synchrotron light is used to determine the properties of matter, for example, crystal structures, bonding energies of molecules, the electronic structures of the samples, the magnetic properties and any chemical and physical transformations that may occur.
Synchrotron light sources are used in such fields as medical imaging and radiation therapy, electronics and communications, environmental and earth science.