DESYs Röntgenlaser FLASH - High-Speed-Kamera für den Nanokosmos

How do the molecules of life work? How do the fuels of the future work? How can we gain energy more efficiently and save resources? Questions to FLASH, the high-speed camera for the nanocosmos. Since 2005, the world's first free electron laser in the FLASH range at DESI in Hamburg is a very special light for researchers from all over the world. Extremely intense, ultra-short-pulsed X-ray laser flashes. Researchers thus track the movements of atoms and molecules. And so the desired radiation is created. Electrons are accelerated almost to light speed. Special magnetic arrangements, the undulators, force the electrons on a slalom course. In the curves, the fast particles emit short X-ray light flashes. These flashes overlap and swing at the same rate. The unique X-ray laser light is created. FLASH generates unimaginably intense and short light flashes in the range of femtoseconds, i.e. billionths of a second. This is why it is so interesting, because in nature, for example, chemical reactions take place at femtosecond speeds. This makes it possible to film them with FLASH. FLASH is the pioneering facility where the foundations for filming in the nanocosmos were explored. For example, if you want to observe details of chemical reactions, you first make countless individual recordings until you have captured all stages of the reaction. Intertwined, they result in a film that shows the molecular process. With X-ray lasers like FLASH, we can track how atoms and molecules move. With these findings, we can develop new materials, for example, for information technology or new drugs. Albert Einstein laid the foundation for this development. In 1905, he explained the photoelectric effect by showing that light behaves like particles. This was a revolutionary hypothesis for the time. If you irradiate a substance with X-ray light, electrons are ejected from the atomic shells. They characterize the respective substance like a chemical fingerprint. The Swedish Nobel Prize winner Kai Siegbahn developed a groundbreaking method to determine the chemical composition of matter on this basis. FLASH develops basic methods that allow us to track molecular reactions. The era of these films from the nanocosmos has just begun and has a wide range of applications in many areas of science. This will lead to a deeper understanding of these basic processes. How can we optimize the surfaces of catalysts or solar cells? How do powerful data storages arise from ultra-thin magnetic layers? How does a virus infect a cell? And how can a pathogen be effectively stopped? What exotic forms of matter are there in the interior of distant planets? FLASH paves the way to the dynamic world of ultra-fast processes in atoms and molecules. At FLASH, we have developed the methods that allow us to track molecular reactions in real time. The era of these films from the nanocosmos has just begun and has a wide range of applications in many areas of science. On the DESI campus, the full potential of these advanced technologies is being exploited. With FLASH, the X-ray light source PETRA-3 and the new X-ray laser European XF-EL, which is currently being built, DESI has light sources of the extra class. They form the basis for a pulsating international and interdisciplinary research campus. The rise to the dynamic world of atoms and molecules has just begun and is being led here at DESI into the future.