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Inverse Compton scattering provides means to generate low-divergence partially coherent quasi-monochromatic, i.e. synchrotron-like, X-ray radiation on a laboratory scale. This enables the transfer of synchrotron techniques into university or industrial environments. Here, the Munich Compact Light Source is presented, which is such a compact synchrotron radiation facility based on an inverse Compton X-ray source (ICS). The recent improvements of the ICS are reported first and then the various experimental techniques which are most suited to the ICS installed at the Technical University of Munich are reviewed. For the latter, a multipurpose X-ray application beamline with two end-stations was designed. The beamline's design and geometry are presented in detail including the different set-ups as well as the available detector options. Application examples of the classes of experiments that can be performed are summarized afterwards. Among them are dynamic in vivo respiratory imaging, propagation-based phase-contrast imaging, grating-based phase-contrast imaging, X-ray microtomography, K-edge subtraction imaging and X-ray spectroscopy. Finally, plans to upgrade the beamline in order to enhance its capabilities are discussed., (open access.)

While large-scale synchrotron sources provide a highly brilliant monochromatic X-ray beam, these X-ray sources are expensive in terms of installation and maintenance, and require large amounts of space due to the size of storage rings for GeV electrons. On the other hand, laboratory X-ray tube sources can easily be implemented in laboratories or hospitals with comparatively little cost, but their performance features a lower brilliance and a polychromatic spectrum creates problems with beam hardening artifacts for imaging experiments. Over the last decade, compact synchrotron sources based on inverse Compton scattering have evolved as one of the most promising types of laboratory-scale X-ray sources: they provide a performance and brilliance that lie in between those of large-scale synchrotron sources and X-ray tube sources, with significantly reduced financial and spatial requirements. These sources produce X-rays through the collision of relativistic electrons with infrared laser photons. In this study, an analysis of the performance, such as X-ray flux, source size and spectra, of the first commercially sold compact light source, the Munich Compact Light Source, is presented.