[1] The CLS has a third-generation 2.9 GeV storage ring, and the building occupies a footprint the size of a Canadian football field.

[5] Research at the CLS has ranged from viruses[6] to superconductors[7] to dinosaurs,[8] and it has also been noted for its industrial science[9] and its high school education programs.

[10] Canadian interest in synchrotron radiation dates from 1972, when Bill McGowan of the University of Western Ontario (UWO) organised a workshop on its uses.

In 1973 McGowan submitted an unsuccessful proposal to the National Research Council (NRC) for a feasibility study on a possible synchrotron lightsource in Canada.

In 1977 Mike Bancroft, also of UWO, submitted a proposal to NRC to build a Canadian beamline, as the Canadian Synchrotron Radiation Facility (CSRF), at the existing Synchrotron Radiation Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and in 1978 newly created NSERC awarded capital funding.

His successor was Mike Bancroft[11] At the start of the project, all staff members with the former SAL were transferred into a new not-for-profit corporation, Canadian Light Source Inc., CLSI, which had primary responsibility for the technical design, construction and operation of the facility.

[15] The 1991 proposal to NSERC envisioned a 1.5 GeV storage ring, since at this time the interest of the user community was mainly in the soft X-ray range.

[18] Peter Mansbridge broadcast the CBC's nightly newscast The National from the top of the storage ring the day before the official opening.

[19] In parliament local MP Lynne Yelich said "There were many challenges to overcome, but thanks to the vision, dedication and persistence of its supporters, the Canadian Light Source synchrotron is open for business in Saskatoon.

[28] Science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer was writer-in-residence for two months in 2009 in what he called a "once in a lifetime opportunity to hang out with working scientists"[29] While there he wrote most of the novel "Wonder",[30] which won the 2012 Prix Aurora Award for best novel.

[5] That year a high school group from La Loche Saskatchewan became the first to use the purpose built educational beamline IDEAS.

[32] Also in 2012 the CLS signed an agreement with the Advanced Photon Source synchrotron in the USA to allow Canadian researchers access to their facilities.

[33] An international team led by University of Calgary professor Ken Ng solved the detailed structure of RNA polymerase using X-ray crystallography at the CLS.

[6] CLS scientist Luca Quaroni and University of Saskatchewan professor Alan Casson used infrared microscopy to identify biomarkers inside individual cells from tissue associated with Barrett's esophagus.

[7] Using the X-ray spectromicroscopy beamline, a research team led by scientists from the State University of New York, Buffalo produced images of graphene showing how folds and ripples act as speed bumps for electrons, affecting its conductivity.

By 2007 more than 60 projects had been carried out,[9] although in a speech in the same year, then-CLS director Bill Thomlinson said that "one of the biggest challenges for the synchrotron...is to get private users through the door", with less than 10% of time actually used by industry.

[39] He gave a speech on the mezzanine level of the building following his tour of the facility, praising the project for helping to reverse the brain drain of scientists from Canada.

He was visiting the LNLS synchrotron in Brazil, during a live link-up, by video chat and remote control software, between the two facilities.

[43] With the NRU reactor at the Chalk River Laboratories due to close in 2016, there was a need to find alternative sources of the medical isotope technetium-99m, a mainstay of nuclear medicine.

In 2011 the Canadian Light Source received $14 Million in funding to investigate the feasibility of using an electron LINAC to produce molybdenum-99, the parent isotope of technetium-99.

[45] This project lead to the founding a spin-off company — Canadian Isotope Innovations Corporation (CIIC), which was described as part of CEO Rob Lamb's 'legacy of accomplishment' when he departed the facility in 2021.

This outreach program for science allows high school students to fully experience the work of a scientist, in addition to having the chance to use the CLS beamlines.

"The program allows students the development of active research, a very rare phenomena in schools and provides direct access to the use of a particle accelerator, something even rarer!"

[32] "The aim for the students," according to CLS education and outreach coordinator Tracy Walker, "is to get an authentic scientific inquiry that's different from the examples in textbooks that have been done thousands of times.

The 78m low energy transfer line takes the electrons from the below-ground LINAC to the ground level booster in the newer CLS building, via two vertical chicanes.

The full energy 2.9 GeV booster, chosen to give high orbit stability in the storage ring, operates at 1 Hz, with an RF frequency of 500 MHz, unsynchronised with the LINAC.

Each cell has two bending magnets detuned to allow some dispersion in the straights – the so-called double-bend achromat structure – and thus reduce the overall beam size.

[54] The CLS is the smallest of the newer synchrotron facilities, which results in a relatively high horizontal beam emittance of 18.2 nm-rad.