The European XFEL Free Electron Laser at DESY

Hans Weise

Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron

The European X-ray Free-Electron laser Facility (XFEL) is going to be built in an international collaboration at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Germany, and the Technical Design Report was published in 2006. The official project is expected for summer 2007. This new facility will offer photon beams at wavelengths as short as 1 Ångstroem with highest peak brilliance being more than 100 million times higher than present day synchrotron radiation sources. The radiation has a high degree of transverse coherence and the pulse duration is reduced from ~100 picoseconds (typ. for SR light sources) down to the ~10 femtosecond time domain. The overall layout of the XFEL will be described. This includes the envisaged operation parameters for the linear accelerator using superconducting TESLA technology. The complete design is based on the actually operated FLASH free-electron laser at DESY. Experience with the operation during first long user runs at wavelengths from 30 to 13 nm will be described in detail.