A team from the Technical University Munich (TUM) in Germany recently reported an independent analysis of the operation of the Munich Compact Light Source (MuCLS) in the Sept. 2016 issue of the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation.

The MuCLS is the first commercial installation of a miniature synchrotron developed and manufactured by Lyncean Technologies, Inc. of Fremont, CA. It is designed to fill the gap in X-ray performance between conventional X-ray sources and stadium-sized synchrotron radiation x-ray facilities.

The published article "The Munich Compact Light Source: initial performance measures" (J. Synchrotron Rad. (2016). 23, 1137-1142 doi:10.1107/S160057751600967X) benchmarks the operation of the new source which began operation in April 2015.

"The MuCLS enables us to perform measurements locally that up to now were only possible at synchrotron x-ray sources. Doing these experiments locally is extremely important for us since we can have all principal investigators on site to participate and steer measurements." says Franz Pfeiffer, head of the chair for biomedical physics at TUM.

The MuCLS offers TUM's biomedical researchers a unique resource to conduct state-of-the-art X-ray imaging, but at a physical and financial scale that provides a path toward potential clinical applications.

Several publications are currently in press representing a breadth of research from the TUM group, from grating-based phase contrast imaging, k-edge coronary angiography, to studies of microbeam radiation therapy.

"The success of the MuCLS at TUM in the area of biomedical applications is laying the foundation for the proliferation of the Compact Light Source x-ray technology. We will see many other applications such as x-ray diffraction, small angle scattering and spectroscopy taking advantage of the beam qualities of our advanced x-ray source technology." Comments Michael Feser, the CEO of Lyncean Technologies, Inc who developed and manufactured the MuCLS.

The Munich CLS is installed on the Garching research campus of the Technical University Munich at the IMETUM facility. For more information visit here.