Unprecedented: 13.1 nanometers for FLASH! Last night, so far shortest wavelength generated with the TTF-Linac

„This is exciting and fantastic news“ was the spontaneous reaction of Albrecht Wagner when he opened his mailbox this morning. „Congratulations to the entire team!“ This success was celebrated with a party in the accelerator control room last night at 22:10 h (see photo). Already after three hours, when the TTF Linac, equipped with five accelerator modules, reached the designated energy of 700 mega-electronvolt (MeV) , the electron bunches that traversed the undulator emitted laser flashes with a wavelength of only 13.1 nanometers (nm). This is an important step on the way to reach the design value of 6 nm planned for the FLASH facility. With the sixth module which will be installed in the second quarter of 2007, it will be possible to accelerate the electron bunches to 1 GeV and to generate wavelengths of 6 nm.


From the logbook: the plot for the experts