The properties of this light and the specially designed experimental stations, called beamlines, allowed scientists in many fields of research to perform experiments not otherwise possible at their own laboratories.

In 1986, a second phase of construction expanded the NSLS by 52,000 square feet (4,800 m2), which added offices, laboratories and room for new experimental equipment.

[3] After 32 years of producing synchrotron light, the final stored beam was dumped at 16.00 EDT on 30 September 2014, and NSLS was officially shut down.

Chasman and Green accounted for this in their design by adding insertion devices, known as wigglers and undulators, in the straight sections of the storage ring.

By 1985, the experimental program was in a rapid state of development, and by the end of 1990, the Phase II beamlines and insertion devices were brought into operation.

Once in the ring, VUV or X-ray, the electrons orbit and lose energy as a result of changes in their angular momentum, which cause the expulsion of photons.

On the VUV ring, the endstations were usually UHV (ultra-high vacuum) chambers that were used to conduct experiments using methods such as XPS, UPS, LEEM, and NEXAFS.

In 2003, Roderick MacKinnon won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for deciphering the structure of the neuronal ion channel.

[9] In 2009, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz, and Ada E. Yonath won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for imaging the ribosome with atomic resolution through their use of x-ray crystallography at the NSLS and other synchrotron light sources.