World's most powerful X-ray laser begins first experiments

Washington, November 3 (ANI): Reports indicate that the first experiments are now underway using the world's most powerful X-ray laser.

The X-ray laser in question is the Linac Coherent Light Source, located at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Illuminating objects and processes at unprecedented speed and scale, the LCLS has embarked on groundbreaking research in physics, structural biology, energy science, chemistry and a host of other fields.

In early October, researchers from around the globe began traveling to SLAC to get an initial glimpse into how the X-ray laser interacts with atoms and molecules.

The LCLS is unique, shining light that can resolve detail the size of atoms at ten billion times the brightness of any other manmade X-ray source.

"No one has ever had access to this kind of light before," said LCLS Director Jo Stohr.

"The realization of the LCLS isn't only a huge achievement for SLAC, but an achievement for the global science community. It will allow us to study the atomic world in ways never before possible," he added.

After SLAC's linac accelerates very short pulses of electrons to 99.9999999 percent the speed of light, the LCLS takes them through a 100-meter stretch of alternating magnets that force the electrons to slalom back and forth.

This motion causes the electrons to emit X-rays, which become synchronized as they interact with the electron pulses over this long slalom course, thereby creating the world's brightest X-ray laser pulse.

Each of these laser pulses packs as many as 10 trillion X-ray photons into a bunch that's a mere 100 femtoseconds long-the time it takes light to travel the width of a human hair.

Currently, user-assisted commissioning is underway, with researchers conducting experiments using the Atomic, Molecular and Optical science instrument, the first of six planned instruments for the LCLS.

In these first AMO experiments, researchers are using X-rays from the LCLS to gain an in-depth understanding of how the ultra-bright beam interacts with matter.

Early experiments are already revealing new insights into the fundamentals of atomic physics and have successfully proven the machine's unique capabilities to control and manipulate the underlying properties of atoms and molecules.

Future AMO experiments will create stop-action movies of molecules in motion. (ANI)