Image: Dirk Noelle | 8 March 2012Visitors ramble where electrons will one day whizz: a large number of people working at DESY and the European XFEL were treated to a rare trip underground into the recently completed but still completely empty tunnel for the European XFEL. And empty tunnels make for good images. Read more about the European-XFEL tunnel
Category: Image of the week | Tagged: DESY, XFEL
Wilhelm Bialowons (DESY), John Osborne (CERN) and Masanobu Miyahara (KEK) | 1 March 2012Ten members from the Japanese Society for Civil Engineering’s committee for civil works for future ILC facilities came to Europe in February to look at current civil engineering projects like CERN’s LINAC4 and the European XFEL in Hamburg and to discuss administrative challenges. By the end of March next year, the committee will publish draft guidelines on civil solutions for a potential ILC in Japan.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: CERN, civil engineering, DESY, Japan, XFEL
Ute Wilhelmsen (DESY) | 13 October 2011The European XFEL X-ray laser in Hamburg will use accelerator modules of the newest generation. These high-tech devices are operated using superconducting technology at temperatures similar to those in outer space. The concept was developed and brought to practical application by the international TESLA collaboration, led by DESY.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: DESY, XFEL
11 August 2011The tunnel boring machine TULA (TUnnel for LAser) squeezed through a large hole in the wall of the injector building of the European XFEL facility. The hole, only 40 centimetres wider than the colossus that is TULA, made for a challengingly tight fit. TULA, which started 7 July 2010 at the European XFEL construction site in Schenefeld (Schleswig-Holstein), arrived a couple of days ago at the DESY site in Hamburg. In 13 months it has completed three tunnels with a total length of 3084 metres of the tunnel system, including the 2.1-kilometre-long linac tunnel. The second tunnel boring machine AMELI is still on its way to dig the (slightly thinner) rest of the nearly 6-kilometre long European XFEL tunnel system. TULA is 6.17 metres in diameter and 71 metres long, weighs 550 tonnes and costs 18 million Euros.
Category: Image of the week | Tagged: DESY, tunnel, XFEL
Brian Foster | 23 June 2011Winner of a Humboldt Professorship, Brian Foster has just taken up his work at DESY and University of Hamburg as a joint professor for experimental physics, focusing on accelerators for very high energies. He intends to spend the 5 million Euros for five years to the greatest effect, and the ILC will play a very strong part in his plans.
Category: Director's Corner | Tagged: DESY, FLASH, Germany, HERA, Humboldt Professorship, University of Hamburg, XFEL, ZEUS
Wilhelm Bialowons (DESY) | 16 December 2010Early November, four members of the Global Design Effort Conventional Facilities and Siting group and two guests from Japanese industry visited DESY in Hamburg, Germany, for two days. They wanted to find out more about the current state of the European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) civil construction and to get information about other relevant projects like DESY
Category: Around the World | Tagged: DESY, FLASH, tunnel, XFEL
16 September 2010An important milestone was reached on the way to the European XFEL superconducting linear accelerator: the start of the industrial production of the superconducting accelerator structures. Yesterday and today, kick-off workshops took place to coordinate the future collaboration of DESY with two industrial firms. The superconducting accelerator structures are a joint contribution of DESY and INFN Milano, coordinated by DESY.
Category: Feature | Tagged: DESY, Europe, XFEL
Min Zhang | 2 September 2010The European X-ray Free Electron Laser (European XFEL) and the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) are two important international cooperative science facilities mainly led by Germany. China has participated in the R&D of some detectors, low-temperature systems, high-performance undulators, superconducting material and special material for these projects. On 29 August 2008, the project "Basic Research on the FEL and FAIR" supported by China's national programme for key basic research and development (officially called 973 programme) started. The project is coordinated by the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Science (IHEP), and about ten different research institutes, universities and corporations in China participate in this project, including the Institute of Modern Physics, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Orient Tantalum Industry Corp. (OTIC), etc.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: China, FAIR, IHEP, XFEL
Barbara Warmbein | 1 October 2009A cryomodule prototype for the European XFEL has set the world gradient record for cryomodules built with superconducting radiofrequency technology, reaching an average accelerating gradient of more than 32 megavolts per metre (MV/m) in recent tests. This is an important step towards major goals set for the ILC’s Technical Design Phase (TDP), which include demonstrating system performance of fully fitted cryomodules like the record prototype. The accelerator module will be built into the FLASH free-electron laser at DESY, making it possible to increase the FLASH energy to 1.2 GeV. This means that even shorter wavelengths down to 4.5 nanometers will be available for experiments starting next year.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: cryomodule, FLASH, XFEL
