Inside the Superconducting X-ray Laser Engineered to Image the Atomic World

Inside the Superconducting X-ray Laser Engineered to Image the Atomic World

The LCLS is short for the Linac Coherent Light Source. It’s the world’s first hard x-ray free electron laser. The LCLS uses a particle accelerator to fire extremely bright electrons to create fast pulses of hard x-rays, which is why the machine is called an x-ray laser.

At the time of its first light in 2009, the Linac Coherent Light Source generated x-ray pulses a billion times brighter than anything around. The LCLS is a tool unlike anything before it. We’re able to deliver these pulses of x-rays in one millionth of one billionth of a second.

he LCLS maxes out at 120 pulses per second. So to see the ultra small world like never before, scientists and engineers are building something new. The LCLS-II is going to take the free electron laser field up another quantum leap. This will be unprecedented and will allow for a beam that’s 8,000 times brighter than the LCLS beam and running at this million pulses per second.

The LCLS-II will be the world’s brightest x-ray laser when it delivers « first light » in the early 2020’s. With this superconducting accelerator online, scientists will be able to see the hidden world of atoms and molecules like never before.