Welcome to the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory. The APS is the brightest synchrotron X-ray light source in the world and has recently been upgraded to become the first fourth-generation synchrotron facility in the United States. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the APS is a national user facility open to scientists from across the country and around the world. 

The APS is one of the most technologically complex machines in the world, providing ultrabright, high-energy X-ray beams to approximately 5,500 scientists in a typical year. Users of the facility come from academia, industry and other research institutions and bring with them new ideas for discovery across the scientific spectrum. APS data has been instrumental in three Nobel Prize-winning research projects and has led to breakthroughs in energy storage, materials science, chemistry and biology, to name a few.

The APS has more than 450 employees committed to facilitating the success of APS users in pursuit of knowledge. Scientists access our facility at no cost by proposing an appropriate non-proprietary research program. (Proprietary research is also possible at the APS on a cost-recovery basis.) If you are interested in becoming an APS user, visit the APS User Office page.

For more information about the APS, visit our introduction to the APS page.