The high-energy upgrade will keep the U.S. at the forefront of X-ray science and technology, allowing researchers to advance fields such as sustainability, human health and quantum information.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has given the green light for construction to begin on a high-energy upgrade that will further boost the performance of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the world’s most powerful X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) at the DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. When complete, the upgrade will allow scientists to explore atomic-scale processes with unprecedented precision and address fundamental questions in energy storage, catalysis, biology, materials science and quantum physics like never before.
“This high-energy upgrade to LCLS strengthens the lab’s position as a world leader in X-ray and ultrafast science,” said SLAC Lab Director John Sarrao. “With the critical support of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and our partner labs, the upgrade, when complete, will open new avenues for scientific discovery and innovation. This will continue to attract top talent and foster groundbreaking research across multiple disciplines.”
In 2023, SLAC celebrated completion of the LCLS-II project, taking X-ray science to a whole new level with the addition of a superconducting accelerator, two new magnetic structures, called undulators, to generate soft and hard X-rays from the electron beam, and other major leaps in technology that allow the facility to produce up to a million X-ray pulses per second – 8,000 times more than its predecessor.
The new upgrade project, called LCLS-II-HE, will double the energy of the electron beam coming out of the superconducting electron accelerator, which will more than double the maximum X-ray energy and deliver a 3,000-fold performance increase in average X-ray brightness for “hard,” or high-energy, X-rays.
“The LCLS-II-HE upgrade will be a transformative advance for the scientific mission of DOE Basic Energy Sciences and the broader scientific community,” said LCLS Director Mike Dunne. “If the LCLS-II upgrade enabled a high-quality movie camera capable of capturing clear and detailed images, the LCLS-II-HE upgrade greatly boosts that camera’s resolution and sensitivity. Scientists will be able to image the atomic-scale motion of materials, chemical systems and biological complexes to address some of the most critical challenges facing our society.”
With favorable Critical Decisions 2 and 3 (CD-2/3) in September 2024, DOE has formally approved construction of the $716M project, representing a significant advancement in X-ray laser technology.
Read more on SLAC website