World’s most powerful X-ray laser begins operation

Based in the German city of Hamburg, the billion Euro facility consists of a superconducting linear accelerator and a photon beamlines housed in a 3.4km long underground tunnel running from the DESY research centre in Hamburg, to the nearby town of Schenefeld.

Scientists will be able to use the X-ray flashes generated by XFEL to, for example, map the three-dimensional structure of biomolecules and other biological particles, and do so faster and with more detail than has ever been previously possible.

Furthermore, single snapshots of particles produced with the X-ray laser can be sewn together to create “molecular movies” to study the progress of biochemical and chemical reactions – the basis for the development of new medicines and therapies or environmentally friendlier production methods and processes for extracting energy from sunlight.

During operation, electrons are accelerated to an energy of up to 17.5GeV along the mile-long accelerator before being slalomed through a series of magnets known as undulators, causing them to emit bunches of high-energy X-rays.