Synchrotron radiation techniques in materials and environmental science.

Synchrotron-based techniques have had, over the last 30 years, a major and profound effect on the study of complex materials and on environmental science. Their ability to obtain accurate information at the atomic and molecular level on both local and longrange structures, together with the increasing ability to undertake time-resolved structural studies, has transformed our understanding of several key classes of functional material, while their power as analytical probes has a major influence on aspects of environmental science. Beamlines at the Diamond Light Source continue to make a major contribution to these fields, which are briefly reviewed in this article and which are clearly exemplified in the papers of Tromp [1] and Burke et al. [2].