Diamond Light Source Tech Stack

UK national synchrotron facility operating advanced X-ray and light-source research infrastructure

Research Services Didcot, Oxfordshire 501–1,000 employees Founded 2002 Nonprofit

Diamond Light Source operates the UK's synchrotron—a large-scale physics facility that generates intense beams of light for academic and industrial research. The tech stack is heavily weighted toward hardware control and embedded systems (FPGA, VHDL, Verilog, MATLAB, CAD), with a smaller modern web tier (React, Next.js, GraphQL). Active projects cluster around migrating legacy experiment control platforms to Athena while executing a major facility-wide upgrade cycle; hiring is engineering-dominated (19 of 23 roles) but decelerating, suggesting the upgrade work is in execution rather than expansion phase.

Tech Stack 39 technologies

Core StackPython C++ MATLAB JavaScript React Next.js Figma Sketch Jest Cypress GraphQL Linux Bluesky Xilinx Vivado VHDL Verilog C LTspice PSpice Simscape FPGA HTML CSS Vitest Jasmine JSON Schema Git Turbo CAD+8 more

AdoptingAthena

What Diamond Light Source Is Building

◆Challenges

Replacing legacy user administration system
Major upgrade of facility
Replacing legacy experiment control platform
Upgrading power supply systems
Next generation power supplies
High-performance magnet power supplies
Upgrading accelerator infrastructure
Ensuring quality during major upgrade
Delivering new beamlines
Distributed control systems

▲Active Projects

Diamond-ii upgrade project
Csxid beamline ui
Developing athena software for soft condensed matter and crystallography beamlines
Supporting scm+x beamlines
Migrating gda to athena
Growth of graphene with defects
Characterisation of defect sites using synchrotron techniques
Offline lab sample preparation
Swift beamline ui
Shared ui frameworks

Hiring Activity

Decelerating25 roles · 4 in 30d

Department

Engineering

Research

Finance

Support

Seniority

Senior

Mid

Junior

Manager

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About Diamond Light Source

Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. The organization operates a large particle accelerator that produces intense beams of light across infrared to X-ray wavelengths, serving academic and industrial researchers in structural biology, physics, chemistry, materials science, and environmental sciences. With approximately 501–1,000 employees, the facility is currently undergoing a major upgrade including new beamlines, accelerator infrastructure improvements, and replacement of legacy experiment control and user administration systems. The organization is structured as a nonprofit research institution.

HeadquartersDidcot, Oxfordshire

Company Size501–1,000 employees

Founded2002

Hiring MarketsUnited Kingdom

Frequently Asked Questions

What tech does Diamond Light Source use for control systems?

FPGA, VHDL, Verilog, MATLAB, and CAD dominate the embedded and hardware layers. The organization is adopting Athena to replace legacy experiment control platforms, with modern web frontends built in React, Next.js, and GraphQL.

What projects is Diamond Light Source working on?

Primary focus: the diamond-ii facility upgrade, beamline UI development (csxid, swift), and migration of the legacy GDA control system to Athena. Secondary work includes defect characterization using synchrotron techniques and graphene growth studies.