Synchotron radiation (SR), emitted from high energy electrons as a light source is now in use around the world to provide brilliant radiation from the infrared into the soft and hard X-ray regions. It is an indispensable and essential tool to establish the physic-chemical characteristics of materials and surfaces from an atomic and molecular view point. It is being applied to topics which range from mineralogy to protein crystallography, embracing research in areas from the physical to the life sciences.

This new guide is a concise yet comprehensive and easily readable introduction to an expanding area of science. It presents in a readily assimilable form the basic concepts of SR science from its generation principles, through source design and operation, and basic theory of the interaction between light and matter to the principles of instruments for SR exploitation followed by a survey of its actual applications in selected research fields, including spectroscopy, diffractometry, microanalysis, photochemical processing and imaging.