The most powerful X-ray emitter in the world has been activated
The US Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has emitted the first X-rays using the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray free electron laser (XFEL), a press release said. The upgraded version, called LLCS-II, was built for $1.1 billion and is capable of emitting the most powerful X-rays in the world.
Stanford's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has been building and using powerful tools to advance science for more than six decades. The original LCLS was the world's first XFEL, reaching its first light in April 2009.
Even as X-rays have become a routine application in healthcare, scientists continue to use much more powerful versions to probe biological materials and materials to better understand them. The original LCLS accelerated electrons through a copper tube at room temperature, limiting it to 120 X-ray pulses per second.
The world's most powerful X-ray laser now boasts the ability to fire up to one million pulses per second. This made it 8000 times faster than its predecessor and the most powerful in the world.
How does LCLS-II work?
The enhanced capabilities of the LCLS-II are due to the superconducting accelerator built to fire X-rays. The accelerator is made up of 37 modules capable of cooling helium to -456 degrees Fahrenheit (-271 degrees Celsius), just above absolute zero. At these temperatures, the accelerator drives electrons to high-energy states with almost zero energy loss.
The SLAC team retained the original copper tube accelerator, enabling data collection over a wide energy range and collecting more data in less time, while broadening the scope of experiments that can be conducted at the facility.
Here is an explanatory video
In addition to a new electron source, the LCLS-II also saw the addition of two new undulators capable of generating X-rays from electron beams. Dubbed “soft” and “hard,” these undulators produce low- and high-energy X-rays, allowing researchers to perform their experiments with much higher precision and the ability to probe deeper.
The LCLS was instrumental in creating the first “molecular film” to study complex chemical processes and observe how plants and algae absorb sunlight to provide us with oxygen in real time. The instrument's X-rays also shed light on how planets evolve and how diamond showers form.
Now, with an even more powerful configuration, the LCLS-II is ready to take on challenges considered unattainable. Researchers will now be able to study quantum materials in more detail, paving the way for building more efficient quantum devices, computers and ultrafast data processing, the press release said.
The LCLS-II will also allow researchers to capture snapshots of chemical reactions at the atomic scale and help design more efficient processes in areas such as chemical production and energy generation, and contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases. He will basically take x-rays at the molecular level.
The quality of the experiments that can be carried out by this instrument will be able to attract thousands of researchers from all over the world.
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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/attivato-il-piu-potente-emettitore-di-raggi-x-al-mondo/ on Fri, 22 Sep 2023 06:00:27 +0000.