MAX IV

MAX IV, located in Lund, is a Swedish national research facility inaugurated in 2016. It is the world’s first fourth-generation facility with 16 beamlines in full user operation. MAX IV consists of an accelerator system with two storage rings (1.5 and 3 GeV) and a short pulse facility delivering light from UV to hard X-ray (4 eV–40 keV). The facility can house up to 12 additional beamlines.

The high-intensity coherent light delivered by MAX IV opens up investigations of material properties under realistic conditions with high resolution in time and space. In 2023, MAX IV welcomed 1700 users with a 1.75 oversubscription factor, and since 2016, 650 scientific articles based on data from MAX IV have been published. 64% of users come from Nordic countries. Projects range from operando battery studies and catalysts under realistic pressures to remote access drug discovery and high-resolution phase contrast biological imaging.

MAX IV is funded by the Swedish Research Council, Swedish universities, private funders and companies and Nordic and Baltic partners. Around 300 people work at MAX IV, and 26% of employees are women.