XFEL: Photo book ‘European XFEL – Enlightening Science’ available

The photo book printed in celebration of the 10 year anniversary of European XFEL is now available for purchase. This excerpt from the story “Giant in the deep” by Horst Güntheroth, accompanied by some images from the book, provides a taste of the contents.

The physicists and technicians looked excitedly at the large monitors that lined the long table in front of them. They clicked graphs and curves on the screens. Repeatedly changing the settings and studying the effects in the readouts. That’s how it had been going on for days. But this evening, it was silent in the gymnasium-sized, neon-lit control room, where ten men worked at the limits of their concentration.

Then, at 9:19 pm, a tiny orange spot with a sharp border lit up on the blue background of the display. Jubilation broke out. “We jumped up out of our chairs and fell into each other’s arms,” remembers Jan Grünert, who was in the team. “The joy was immense. It was a really special moment in my life,” said the physicist and leader of the Photon Diagnostics group. “It was the reward of many years of work put in by hundreds of people.”That was the moment, on 24 May 2017 when a gigantic but highly sensitive machine was brought to life—the most powerful X-ray laser in the world. For the first time, all of the components were working together so that the pulses of hard X-ray light raced through the facility in a controlled manner. From afar, at the start of the facility, a piece of metal was hit with a UV laser beam releasing electron bunches. These were compressed and loaded with tremendous energy in an accelerator, before magnets forced them on a slalom course. This generated laser pulses of X-ray light. Ultrastrong and ultrashort. “First Lasing”— the machine worked! Operation could begin.

– Excerpt from “Giant in the deep” by Horst Güntheroth.

Book sales

The European XFEL photo book is on sale for 15€ in the company restaurant BeamStop on the European XFEL campus. If you would like to order a book by post, please send a letter including your return address and 20€ (book + postage).

European XFEL GmbH
Attention: Frank Poppe
Holzkoppel 4
22869 Schenefeld
Germany