The most powerful pulse of X-rays ever reported has been produced at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. In only 440 billionths of a billionth of a second, or attoseconds, it packed nearly a terawatt of power 鈥� a thousand times more than the average yearly output of a nuclear power plant.
鈥淚n the near term, it will be hard to do better,鈥� says at SLAC, who worked on the project.
He and his colleagues used the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), an X-ray laser that works by accelerating bunches of electrons to extreme speeds, then employing a series of magnets to make them 鈥渨iggle鈥� and emit radiation in the form of X-rays. In the new experiment, the researchers designed this process so that each electron bunch contributed to the laser鈥檚 X-ray beam twice, reinforcing it and making it unprecedentedly powerful. Marinelli says this method was supported by past theoretical calculations, but the team was surprised by just how well it worked.
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厂尝础颁鈥檚 , who worked on the project, says the power of these ultra-fast X-rays will help researchers take more detailed images of what happens within materials and molecules. It could also lead to new techniques for recording otherwise inaccessible, possibly unknown, processes that particles as small as electrons undertake.
For example, the new X-rays might make 鈥渕ovies鈥� of electron behaviour inside a molecule 鈥� first from the point of view of one atom, then from the point of view of a neighbouring one 鈥� says team member . This could radically improve our understanding of how chemistry happens in systems like batteries, for instance.
Tracking electrons so precisely could eventually be leveraged to control what they do, which could lead to more efficient materials for applications like harvesting solar energy, says at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) accelerator, who was not involved in the project.
In 2023, LCLS was upgraded to a new facility called LCLS-II, which can fire up to 10,000 times more pulses per second than its predecessor. Between that and the new result, the SLAC team is optimistic that its X-ray laser may soon provide unprecedented views of some of nature鈥檚 smallest moving parts.
Nature Photonics
Article amended on 23 May 2024
We corrected how long the X-ray pulse lasted
