A leading-edge laser built by the Central Laser Facility (CLF) and Oxford University will play a key role in the billion-Euro XFEL facility that reveals matter’s deepest secrets using X-ray flashes a billion times brighter than normal X-rays.
Under construction near Hamburg, Germany and due for commissioning in 2016, the pioneering European XFEL (link opens in a new window) (x-ray free electron laser) facility will employ a ‘pump-probe’ technique with samples first heated by one laser (the ‘pump’), then examined by the XFEL beam (the ‘probe’). The UK-made laser will be the ‘pump’. Its £8 million, 30-month development is being funded jointly by STFC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The compact, efficient DiPOLE laser amplifier head design, containing thin slabs of laser glass pumped by arrays of diodes
The advanced technology harnessed by the laser is known as DiPOLE (Diode Pumped Optical Laser for Experiments), a revolutionary concept devised at the CLF’s Centre for Advanced Laser Technology and Applications (CALTA). DiPOLE enables production of pulses of laser light combining very high energy with very rapid repetition rates (rather than just one or the other), and allows the timing of laser pulses to be very finely adjusted and precisely controlled. This will be vital to the European XFEL – which will use lasers to generate up to 27,000 X-ray flashes per second.
The 100 J, 10 Hz DiPOLE laser will be used on the
high-energy density end-station of XFEL (link opens in a new window). The laser will be used to compress matter to extreme pressures, like those found within giant planets. The x-rays from XFEL can then be used to analyse the matter in these extreme states. Other possible experiments include coupling DiPOLE to other lasers to explore the prospect of compact accelerators.
The UK’s contribution of the 100J DiPOLE laser enables access to the high-energy density end-station for the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (HIBEF) consortium (link opens in a new window). They will be provided with 140 days access over the first 5 years of operation. The UK consortium to HIBEF comprises the universities of Oxford, UCL, Warwick, QUB, Imperial, Plymouth, York, Strathclyde, Cambridge and SUPA (Physics Scotland).
The laser’s component parts will be designed, manufactured and demonstrated in the UK before shipping to Germany for assembly. The UK team will also provide the XFEL team with training on how to install it. The laser will be specially configured to fit the space earmarked for it at the new facility.
Minister for Universities and Science Greg Clark MP recently announced that the
United Kingdom will invest up to £30 million to become a full member of the European XFEL facility (link opens in a new window). The UK will become the 12th member of the project, joining Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
