China Hosts World’s Brightest Vacuum Ultra Violet Laser Facility

The world’s brightest vacuum ultra violet light free electron laser research facility can be found in China.

AsianScientist (Jan. 19, 2017) – A team of Chinese scientists has developed the world’s brightest free electron laser (FEL), the Dalian Coherent Light Source (DCLS). The DCLS is unique in that it is the only FEL light source that operates in the vacuum ultra violet region.

High gain FELs have captured the attention of the scientific community in the last decade. In recent years, a series of high gain FEL light source facilities in the X-ray and soft X-ray region have been successfully developed around the world, including the Linac Coherent Light Source at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser (SACLA) in Japan.

However, no dedicated high gain vacuum ultra violet FEL light source facility for basic research has been developed until now. Vacuum ultra violet light sources are especially useful for sensitive detection of atoms, molecules and clusters. They can also be used to probe valence electronic structures of all kinds of materials.

Now, a team of scientists and engineers led by Professors Yang Xueming, Zhao Zhentang and Wang Dong has succeeded in developing DCLS, a light source that can deliver lasers in the 8 to 24 eV range.

Over the last two months, the team has successfully commissioned the new FEL facility. By applying undulator tapering technology, a photon flux of 1.4×1014 photons per pulse was achieved. The project began in early 2012 as a close collaboration between research scientists and engineers from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) and Shanghai Institute of Applied Source (SINAP), two institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“Vacuum ultra violet FEL light sources have wide applications in the study of basic energy science, chemistry, physics and atmospheric sciences. We expect that the new facility will become a new machine for important scientific discoveries and international scientific collaborations,” said Yang.


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Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences; Photo: DICP.
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