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A step closer to compact X-ray lasers

Light sources known as free-electron lasers can produce intense X-ray radiation for a wide range of applications. The process usually needs huge particle accelerators, but an experiment shows how to overcome this limitation.
By
  1. Luca Giannessi

    1. Luca Giannessi is at the FERMI FEL facility, Elettra Synchrotron Trieste, 34149 Basovizza, Trieste, Italy, and at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics, National Laboratory of Frascati, Frascati, Italy.

The advent of new tools for investigating our world has always led to discoveries. Light sources called free-electron lasers (FELs) are examples of such tools. FELs can produce radiation in a broad array of wavelengths, including the extreme-ultraviolet1 and X-ray2 ranges, and can generate ultrashort pulses, at femtosecond3 (10–15 s) or even attosecond4 (10–18 s) timescales. At these spatial and temporal scales, there is little difference between biology, chemistry and physics, and FELs have revolutionized all three disciplines. FELs have enabled matter to be frozen in place and observed at the microscopic level, allowing scientists to resolve the motion of atoms or electrons, control chemical reactions and follow the dynamics of chemical bonds or energy-transfer processes. In a paper in Nature, Wang et al.5 report a milestone in the development of compact X-ray FELs.

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Nature 595, 496-497 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01892-1

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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