With a three-day meeting in Berlin, the EU project IRUVX-PP– the “Preparatory Phase of the EuroFEL Consortium” of the ESFRI roadmap 2006 coordinated by DESY – was brought to an end. The event was hosted by Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, one of the project partners. The participating scientists (117) made a very positive résumé.

From 1-2 March 2011, the EuroFEL “Workshop on Photocathodes for RF guns” took place at the Physics Department of the University of Salento. This workshop was held in the frame of Workpackage 3 of the IRUVX-PP project and organised by the support of National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN). Over 40 researcher experts in these fields took part to this workshop coming from several international research institutes.

Experiments at LCLS show the scientific potential of X-ray Free Electron Lasers It has been a dream of researchers for over a decade: image biological materials at high resolution using incredibly intense X-ray laser pulses. Calculations had long predicted that these blasts of X-rays would allow exquisite measurements of the molecular structure of biological objects, from samples too small to be studied by conventional methods. In the usual methods, X-ray images of materials are blurred out because the X-rays degrade the structure. Surprisingly, the proposed way to overcome this “radiation damage” is to use ultra-short pulses a billion times brighter than conventional sources. The pulses are so fast that the image is formed before the effects of the damage are felt.

Seeded coherent emission from FEL-1 measured by means of a fast photodiode located in the FERMI@Elettra experimental hall. The undulators were tuned at 43 nm. The green trace shows the time profile of a single pulse with the photodiode in saturation. The yellow trace shows a series o seeded FEL pulses being turned on (left) and off (center-right) by changing the superposition between SEED laser pulses and electron pulses.

Representatives of the labs participating in the IRUVX-PP project met from 25 to 26 November at Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. The main goal of the meeting was to decide on the procedure, the areas and the framework of their future collaboration. IRUVX-PP, the preparatory phase for EuroFEL, is to finish end of March 2011.

In October 2010, the commissioning phase of the X-Ray Pump-Probe experimental station at the Stanford LCLS source was finished. The very first user experiment in the hard x-ray range was carried out by a group of scientists from SLAC, the European XFEL and PSI under the lead of Christian David (PSI).

Good news from our UK partners: The Infra Red Free Electron Laser installed on the ALICE energy recovery accelerator at STFC Daresbury Laboratory lased for the first time on Saturday 23rd October 2010 at 16:35. Once established, the FEL lased for several hours at about 8 microns wavelength and appeared quite tolerant to the machine setting.

The members of the IRUVX-PP PrepGroup and the Steering Commitee held meetings at DESY in Hamburg on 3 and 4 November 2010. In the meeting the consortium partners intensively discussed the next steps in the process of setting up the future EuroFEL consortium as an ERIC. Additionally they prepared the Directors' Meeting in Villingen end of November 2010. The work package leaders reported on the status of the deliverables which are all progressing very well. The next PrepGroup and SC meeting will take place on 17-18 January 2011.

The Free Electron Laser FLASH at DESY in Hamburg has set a new record: this weekend, the FLASH accelerator team operated the FEL with an electron energy of 1.25 Giga electronvolts, thus reaching a wavelength of 4.12 nanometres. For the first time FLASH has generated laser light in the so-called water window using the fundamental wavelength – so far this was only reached with laser harmonics.

The Swedish Research council has decided to release and make available the funding previously granted for the MAX IV project. The consequence is that it is now possible to start signing the first order of the accelerator system. For more information see MAXlab.

From 25 – 26 November 2010 the directors/representatives of the participating research centres, DESY, Elettra, HZB, INFN, MAX-lab, PSI and STFC will meet at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland to discuss the foundation of the future EuroFEL consortium. The aim of the meeting is to sign a preliminary consortium agreement.

The most valuable good at FLASH is time. FLASH is more or less the universal prototype for X-ray Free Electron Lasers; therefore, many scientists compete for every minute on it. This is not only true for the users who have been served in routine operation since 2005, but also for accelerator physicists and developers who never run out of ideas on how to improve the facility. They keep upgrading FLASH under the critical eyes of the researchers’ world and show what this technology can do.

An important milestone for the realization of the new SwissFEL facility was reached on the 24th of August 2010, when the core of the new SwissFEL facility was set into operation at the Paul Scherrer Institute. Guest of Honour, Bundesrat Didier Burkhalter pressed the red button, and the SwissFEL Injector Test Facility produced its first electron beam. The Paul Scherrer Institute is one of the partners of the EuroFEL consortium. For more information see news from PSI .

At the 32nd International Free Electron Laser Conference in Malmö, Sweden, the EuroFEL consortium has been presented by Josef Feldhaus, scientific coordinator of the projects preparatory phase. Josef Feldhaus reported about the progress of the several national FEL projects and the current status of EuroFEL.

A meeting of the WP3 Expert Group “Metrology for FEL-Optics” is scheduled for 25-26 November 2010 at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI). The meeting will be held in conjunction with members of the WP3 Expert Group “Photon Beam Transport and Diagnostics” and WP7. Other interested scientists of the EuroFEL Consortium are very welcome to join the meeting.

End of June, about 85 scientist from 33 current and future FEL labs and industrial participants met at DESY in Hamburg for the first “EuroFEL Workshop on Photon Beamlines and Diagnostics” which was organised by the workpackages 3 and 7 of the IRUVX-PP project. The aim was to discuss new ideas which arise in the different laboratories, and to start joining the efforts for developing diagnostic systems and metrology.

The spectrum of the record laser pulse peaks at a wavelength of 4.45 nanometres. For the first time, FLASH produced laser light with a wavelength of 4.45 nanometres; thus, DESY’s Free Electron Laser for soft X-ray light considerably beat its previous record of 6.5 nanometres. At the same time, the peak intensity of single light pulses nearly doubled, with 0.3 millijoule.

A IRUVX-PP SC meeting was held at DESY in Hamburg on 17 June 2010 to concretise the planning for the 3rd project year. The meeting topics were: reports from the workpackages and deliverables for the 3rd year, internal regulations for the future activity boards, internal regulations for the future EuroFEL activity boards and plannings for the transition phase to the EuroFEL consortium. Furthermore a concept to reach new users has been presented and discussed. The next SC meeting will take place on 4 November.

The SPARC test facility provides a new and exciting opportunity to study Free Electron Laser (FEL) dynamics in exotic configurations. The undulator is based on six variable gap modules which may be tuned combining the higher order resonances to realize Free Electron Laser cascades or harmonic cascades