World's first hard X-ray free-electron laser is on course to completion
ARGONNE, Ill. (June 22, 2007) — Argonne reached another milestone in the design
and construction of the Linac
Coherent Light Source (LCLS) undulator system.
LCLS will be the world's first X-ray free electron laser to produce hard X-rays
when it becomes operational at the Stanford
Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in 2009. It will be the first
X-ray laser to combine the brilliance of laser sources with the penetrating
power and atomic sensitivity of X-rays. Argonne is a partner laboratory on
the project and is responsible for the 130-meter undulator system,
including magnets, support structures, beam diagnostics, controls and vacuum
systems.
Undulators are the heart of the LCLS free electron laser, providing a precise
magnetic field through which an electron beam will travel. The undulators'
magnetic fields force the electrons to oscillate back and forth and produce
large amounts of X-rays. These X-rays interact back on the electrons and force
them to bunch at X-ray wavelengths. When this occurs, the electrons emit their
light coherently, causing a large gain in radiation power that raises the X-rays'
intensity.
“Argonne was tapped to participate in this project due to the expertise demonstrated
with the Advanced Photon Source undulator systems,” said J. Murray Gibson,
associate laboratory director of Argonne's Scientific User Facilities. “An
X-ray laser such as LCLS will open up new scientific frontiers and represents
an immense technical achievement for the United States. We could not have
done this without the partnership of national laboratories, universities
and industry.”
“The last of the 40 LCLS undulators was assembled and accepted by Argonne
late last month, on time and within budget, from Hi-Tech
Manufacturing in Illinois
and Metalex Manufacturing in Ohio,” said Argonne LCLS Project Director Geoff
Pile. “The LCLS project remains on course for completion in March 2009.”
“This is the first time such ultra-precise undulators were mass-produced in
America by non-specialized small businesses,” said Emil Trakhtenberg, Argonne
senior mechanical engineer at APS.
Each undulator comprises a precision-tuned array of ultra-strong neodymium-iron-boron
permanent magnets and vanadium permendur magnetic poles. The magnets and poles
are mounted in aluminum structures bolted into a 3.4-meter-long titanium strongback.
The strongback secures the magnet and pole assemblies, counteracts the very
high magnetic forces between the upper and lower magnetic arrays, and is critical
in determining the thermal and mechanical stability of the undulator. Precision
and stability requirements for the LCLS devices far exceed those for existing
undulators at the Advanced Photon Source and other light-source facilities.
The pulses of X-ray laser light from LCLS, a fourth-generation light-source,
will be shorter and a billion times brighter than can be produced by any other
X-ray source available now or in the near future.
“These advanced characteristics will aid scientists in discovering and probing
new states of matter, understanding and following chemical reactions and biological
processes in real time, imaging chemical and structural properties of materials
on the nanoscale, and many new and exciting discoveries we cannot even imagine
today,” said Marion White, senior physicist at APS. “The LCLS will enable revolutionary
new science.”
The LCLS project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and is being constructed
by a partnership of three national laboratories: SLAC, Argonne and Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology.
The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic
and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne
researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities,
and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific
problems, advance America 's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for
a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed
by UChicago
Argonne, LLC for
the U.S.
Department of Energy's Office
of Science.
For more information, please
contact Steve McGregor (630/252-5580 or media@anl.gov)
at Argonne.
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