CFEL, Hamburg
The ultrafast, ultrabright, coherent X-ray pulses offered by X-ray FELs open the doors to a range of new capabilities in X-ray science. The ultrafast pulses from X-ray FELs enable X-ray imaging beyond conventional radiation damage limits enabling the ultrafast single-shot images of transient phenomena and material structure to be captured. Although sufficient dose is deposited in a single pulse to completely destroy the sample, it is nevertheless possible to collect meaningful diffraction patterns from the undamaged sample before it is destroyed using ultra-short X-ray pulses that terminate pulse before the effects of sample damage are manifested. Experiments in recent years at the first operational FELs in the X-ray regime FLASH and LCLS - have demonstrated the feasibility of flash imaging using soft X-ray FELs. In particular it has been shown that measurements can be made before sample damage occurs. Single-pulse X-ray imaging has been used to study the time evolution of non-cyclic phenomena such as laser-induced ablation with nanoscale resolution and a shutter speed measured in femtoseconds.
This work was carried out as part of a large collaboration consisting of CFEL DESY, Arizona State University, SLAC, Uppsala University, LLNL, The University of Melbourne, LBNL, the Max Planck
ELETTRA, Basovizza
Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin
Physikalisches Institut Albert-Ludwig, Freiburg
Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Roma
The Low Density Matter beamline (LDM) at FERMI@Elettra is scheduled to begin operation in early 2011 as a large collaborative project for experiments on neutral matter beams, and later on trapped species and mass selected ions. FERMI@Elettra is a seeded source comprising two Free Electron Lasers(FELs) that will generate short pulses (25200fs) of VUV (FEL1:12-60eV) and XUV/soft-X-rays (FEL2:60-300eV; third harmonic: up to 900eV) with close-to-transform-limited transverse and longitudinal coherence, and full polarization control. It includes a synchronized broadly-tunable user laser for pump-probe experiments. LDM modular design seeks to exploit these unique features with a flexible choice of target system and detection method. It will supply intense beams of neutral atoms, closed-shell molecules, radicals, and pure/doped clusters (the latter ranging from ultracold helium nanodroplets, to atomic and molecular van der Waals clusters, especially water, to clusters of refractory materials such as metals and their oxides). These can be combined with a set of detectors, working in tandem when possible, for photoelectron/photoion spectroscopy, fluorescence emission, and photon scattering.
MAX-lab, Lund
The MAX IV project was given the green light in April 2009. The construction will begin in the near future with aim to have the first beamlines in operation during 2015. The main sources at MAX IV are two storage rings (1.5 GeV and 3 GeV) with state-of-the-art low emittance (*) for the production of soft and hard x-rays. The linac injector will also provide short pulses to a short pulse facility (**).
* S C Leemann et al, Beam dynamics for
the MAX IV 3 GeV storage ring. Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams,
12:120701, 2009.
** S Werin et al, Short pulse facility for MAX-lab, Nucl Instrum Methods A. 601[1-2] 98-107, 2009
