FLASH Reaches Design Beam Energy! - Electron beam accelerated to 1 GeV with 6 modules for the first time

During the last shutdown: installation of accelerator module no. 6 in the FLASH tunnel.

As usual, the breakthrough was achieved during a night shift, to be precise: on September 21 at 0:57 a.m. This time, the aim was to reach the planned maximum beam energy. “Goal: Operation to maximum energy – Achievements: 1 GeV!! Spectrum of spontaneous emission measured: ~ 6.3 nm,” reads the entry in the electronic logbook.

For the first time, the team in the control room observed a peak around 6 nanometers in the wavelength spectrum of the spontaneous radiation generated in the FLASH undulator. This is the proof that all six accelerator modules – one of which was newly installed during the previous shutdown, a second one replaced – are working as planned and accelerating the electron bunches to an energy of 1 gigaelectronvolt (GeV). The measurement of the beam energy with a special “dogleg” dipole and its estimate from the rf calibration are also in agreement with 1 GeV.