The X-ray source at Cornell has been funded since 1978 by the National Science Foundation. CHESS, the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, is a user-oriented National Facility whose mission is to provide high-intensity, high-energy X-rays to the scientific and engineering communities at large. CHESS serves scientists in many disciplines, including biology, chemistry, geology, physics, and materials and environmental sciences. Each year over 700 researchers visit CHESS, representing interests from Universities, National Laboratories, and Industry. Educating future scientists is an important part of the mission of CHESS; over 400 Ph.D. degrees have resulted from work carried out at CHESS.

CHESS uses the synchrotron light given off by charged particles, both electrons and positrons, as they circulate at nearly the speed of light around the Cornell Electron Storage Ring. The High Energy Physics community (some 250 scientists across the United States) study the B-meson particles created when the positrons and electrons collide. In essence the X-rays that CHESS users are the "waste product" of the high-energy physics particle collider.

A staff of 35 scientists, engineers, technicians and machinists design, build, and maintain all the experimental facilities. Shown in a plan view below, CHESS houses 9 independent experimental stations, denoted by letters A1 to F3, where research groups place their specimens and collect X-ray data. A full-time Operations staff makes sure the visiting scientists have all the necessary equipment they need for a successful visit.

A large fraction of the CHESS staff works to develop beamline components that can handle the high powered synchrotron X-ray beams. This includes designing and fabricating vacuum chambers, shutters, and apertures that safely contain the beams, and X-ray optical components that both focus the beams onto small specimens and choose the energy of the photons that hit the sample.