Latest Free electron laser Stories

Scientists generate megawatt-class laser beams for the Navy's next-generation weapon systemScientists at Los Alamos National Lab, N.M., have achieved a remarkable breakthrough with the Office of Naval Research's Free Electron Laser (FEL) program, demonstrating an injector capable of producing the electrons needed to generate megawatt-class laser beams for the Navy's next-generation weapon system.The Dec. 20 milestone, which occurred months ahead of schedule, will be the highlight of a two-day...

Stanford University in the USA has an X-FEL (X-ray Free Electron Laser) with a pricetag of hundreds of millions. It provides images of 'molecules in action', using a kilometer-long electron accelerator. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have developed an alternative that can do many of the same things. However this alternative fits on a tabletop, and costs around half a million euro. That's why the researchers have jokingly called it 'the poor man's X-FEL'.It's one of...

December is a time for twinkling lights, and scientists at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are delivering. They've just produced a long-sought, rare color of laser light 100 times brighter than that generated anywhere else.The light was produced by Jefferson Lab's Free-Electron Laser facility. The laser delivered vacuum ultraviolet light in the form of 10 eV photons (a wavelength of 124 nanometers). This color of light is called vacuum ultraviolet...

Australian researchers have identified a way to measure the structure of membrane proteins despite being damaged when using X-ray Free-Electron Lasers (XFELs), a discovery that will help fast track the development of targeted drugs using emerging XFELs technology.About 70% of drugs on the market today depend on the activity of membrane proteins, which are complex molecules that form the membranes of the cells in our body.A major problem for the design of new pharmaceuticals, often known as...

A new analysis technique for the design and optimization of beam optics has successfully been used to model the group behavior of electron beams over a linear accelerator, paving the way for its use at linear accelerator based light source facilities around the world. Tokyo, Japan (PRWeb UK) November 5, 2010 A new analysis technique for the design and optimization of beam optics has successfully been used to model the group behavior of electron beams over a linear accelerator, paving the...

Scientists for the first time have dived into the effect that an intense X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) has on materials.Using the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) facility at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore scientists probed nitrogen gas at X-ray energies of up to 8 keV (kiloelectronvolts), the highest X-ray energy ever used at an XFEL, to see how it behaved when the laser hit it.The photoluminescence-based pulse-energy detector allowed the team to study the...

The first published scientific results from the world's most powerful hard X-ray laser, located at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, show its unique ability to control the behaviors of individual electrons within simple atoms and molecules by stripping them away, one by one"”in some cases creating hollow atoms.These early results "” one published this week, the other last week "” describe in great detail how the Linac Coherent Light Source's intense pulses...

WALTHAM, Mass., May 14, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) is proud to recognize the 50th anniversary of the laser and to celebrate the many innovations that emerged since Theodore Maiman of Hughes Research Labs developed the first working laser May 16, 1960. As part of the celebration, Raytheon hosted a dinner in El Segundo, Calif., Thursday to recognize employees and retirees from Raytheon and Hughes Aircraft Company who have been central to the company's laser...

Like playing a game of scissors-paper-rock, a team of scientists led by Thornton E. (Ernie) Glover of Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), Linda Young of Argonne National Laboratory, and Ali Belkacem of Berkeley Lab's Chemical Sciences Division has used laser light to control x-ray beams "“ by first changing the material medium through which the x-rays pass.As a new generation of powerful light sources comes online, intense x-ray beams may be able to control matter directly and allow...

The first experiments are now underway using the world's most powerful X-ray laser, 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...