Founded on 5 March 1979 (in then West-Berlin), it currently operates one of Germany's 3rd generation synchrotron radiation facilities, BESSY II.
[citation needed] After its decommissioning in 1999, the component parts of the BESSY I machine were donated to the SESAME project by the German Authorities and have consequently been shipped to Jordan.
[3] Groundbreaking for the new improved BESSY II synchrotron source in Adlershof took place on 4 July 1994, and the facility was inaugurated on 4 September 1998.
The successor of BESSY I has a circumference of 240 m, providing 46 beam lines, and offers a multi-faceted mixture of experimental opportunities (undulator, wiggler and dipole sources) with excellent energy resolution.
Synchrotron radiation emerges from the dipole magnets that bend the beam on a circular path, as well as from undulators and wigglers.