Scientists of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have fine-tuned the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) into a more accurate instrument to examine the nanoworld, using a thin diamond fragment.
The advancements emit laser pulses of higher intensity in much narrower bands of x-ray wavelengths, allowing performance of experiments not possible so far. Through the self-seeding process, the diamond refines the x-ray to one color, which is later augmented. The advancement will provide researchers better control for examining and managing matter at the atomic level and will yield a clearer picture of materials, chemical reactions and molecules.
Self-seeding has the capability to generate x-ray pulses with more intensity than that of today. The heightened intensity will help in examining complicated material more closely and finding out more about unique substances like high-temperature superconductors or complex electronic conditions like those in topological insulators.
LCLS pushes electron bunches to almost light’s speed and puts them on a zigzag path with multiple magnets. This coerces the electrons to give out x-ray laser pulses brighter than before and quick enough to investigate samples in a fraction of a second. Without self-seeding, these x-ray laser pulses contain various wavelengths (or colors) in a variable pattern, which cannot all be used in experiments.
Until recently, generating a narrower wavelength band LCLS meant deducting unnecessary wavelengths, which caused reduced intensity. To generate an accurate x-ray wavelength band and make LCLS even more “laser-like”, investigators fixed a diamond crystal fragment halfway down the 130-m path of magnets where the x-rays are generated.
LCLS has already started accepting proposals to use self-seeding in future experiments. Initial trials of the LCLS self-seeding setup have been successful. People from many other x-ray laser facilities came to help and to learn to implement it in their own locations.
Source: http://science.energy.gov/
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