News from 32nd International Free Electron Laser Conference in Malmö (23 – 27 August 2010)

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.
 
The conference was organised by MAX-lab (Lund University), on of the partners of the EuroFEL consortium, and the Stockholm Uppsala FEL Center. FEL 2010 focused on the scientific, technological and some user aspects of Free Electron Lasers.
 
Besides excellent expert presentatios, this years Prize Committee decided to award the prestigious 2010 FEL prize to Dr. Sven Reiche, from the the Paul Scherrer Institute, for “his outstanding contributions to the advancement of the field of Free Electron Laser science and technology”. The Paul Scherrer Institute is one of the partners of the EuroFEL consortium.

More information: http://fel2010.maxlab.lu.se/
Book of abstracts: pdf file

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IRUVX-PP EG-meeting Metrology for FEL Optics

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.

Fur further information, please, feel free to ask the EG-Coordinator: Frank Siewert (frank.siewert@bessy.de) or Uwe Flechsig (uwe.flechsig@psi.ch).

Agenda and timetable of the meeting will follow. For further information please visit the workshop website .

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New experiments need new diagnostics

FELs are opening a fascinating new world of opportunities for photon science. They are providing light pulses of a coherence, brightness and shortness that even a few years ago scientists weren’t able to dream of. But with the new opportunities also new challenges are arising: How to handle and diagnose a light pulse that is a thousand times shorter and a billion times brighter than ever before? Industrial suppliers for today’s synchrotron sources are not able to provide beam line transport systems with the required thermal resistance and spatial accuracy to exploit FELs; they don’t even have the metrology to measure them. New materials, new techniques and new ideas are necessary.

End of June, about 85 scientists 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 & 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. Perspectives of entirely new R&D efforts were presented, for example multilayer mirrors that are able to compress or expand the FEL beam or which can be used for soft X-ray polarimetry techniques. Wave front sensing, another intensively discussed topic, is one of the most promising approaches to optimise FEL beam transport systems and might be used for active or adaptive optics. “It was great to see the participants in intense discussions and making plans for joint projects,” says DESY’s Kai Tiedtke. “The people have amazing new ideas and approaches for the challenges of the FELs.” After three days of presentations and discussion, the participants returned to their labs with the clear wish that this dedicated FEL workshop should mark the start of a series.

More information: http://photondiag2010.eurofel.eu/
Book of abstracts: pdf_file

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