NLS Technical Advisory Committee 8 & 9 December 2009
The New Light Source (NLS) is a proposed facility that will revolutionise the physical, chemical and biological sciences by providing high repetition rate, coherent, synchronised pulses of radiation over a wide spectral range. It will utilise a suite of free electron lasers (FELs), which are the first tools that science has had that can offer both simultaneous nanometre spatial resolution and femtosecond temporal resolution. Thus it will enable “movie making” on the molecular scale.
On the 8th and 9th of December, a team of ten ASTeC staff attended the 2nd NLS Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting at Diamond Light Source. Presentations were given detailing progress on the accelerator design over the past six months. ASTeC staff covered high repetition rate injector design, beam transport, diagnostics, RF & cryogenics, FEL simulations, undulator design and recirculating linac option.
The TAC members are drawn from the leaders of the world’s major FEL projects and through peer-review ensure that the NLS will be a world-leading facility. The TAC endorsed the project view that a prototyping R&D phase should now be the primary goal. In their summary, the TAC concluded that, “NLS will provide spectacular research opportunities to a wide range of users and features clearly visible stand-alone properties”.
For more information on the project see www.newlightsource.org.
31 August 2010