X-ray laser groundbreaking

Building has begun on the facilities for the LCLS x-ray laser at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)

The laser is expected to go live in 2009 and will produce pulses of laser light brighter and shorter than any other laser in the world.

The LCLS represents the 4th generation of machines designed to produce synchrotron radiation for scientific studies, an idea originally pioneered at SLAC in the 1970s. Synchrotron radiation, in the form of x-rays or light, is typically produced by electrons circulating in a storage ring at nearly the speed of light. These extremely bright x-rays can be used to investigate various forms of matter ranging from objects of atomic and molecular size to man-made materials with unusual properties.

Unlike a circular storage ring, the LCLS will produce x-rays using the final 1/3 of SLAC’s existing linear accelerator, in conjunction with long arrays of special magnets called "undulators." These powerful devices also owe their existence to research conducted at SLAC. Because undulators produce intense pulses of radiation lasting barely a billionth of a second, the LCLS will work much like a camera’s flash, enabling scientists to take images of atoms and molecules in motion, shedding light on the fundamental processes of life on an unprecedented scale.


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Michael Harrison

Husband, Programmer, Irish dancer, tinkerer, astronomer, layabout (as much as possible)

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