The National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute" will suspend the operation of its synchrotron radiation source "KISSI-Kurchatov" in mid-2026 for a large-scale modernization. This was announced by Nikita Marchenkov, Deputy Director for Megascience Projects at the NRC "Kurchatov Institute," at the Congress of Users of the SKIF Shared Resource Center.
Scientists expect that by this time, the Russian scientific community will be able to use the Siberian Ring Photon Source (SKIF) being built near Novosibirsk — the first in Russia and one of the most powerful fourth-generation synchrotrons in the world. The complex will allow obtaining data on the structure and behavior of matter with record accuracy. According to the Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the installation is already more than 95% ready, and the launch is expected by the end of 2025.
In the middle of next year, we are stopping the Kurchatov synchrotron for modernization, and, of course, we would like all our users to redirect here to "SKIF", and not in search of foreign sources
The current synchrotron radiation source has been operating at the Kurchatov Institute since the 1990s and remains the only specialized source of this level in the post-Soviet space. It is used for 23 hours a day, six days a week, interrupted only by summer holidays.
According to plans, the modernization will last until the end of 2028 and will increase the luminosity of the installation by 10–20 times, as well as expand the number of research stations. The Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences will be engaged in the production of equipment.
