Free-Electron Laser Collaboration Created

Nine European photon science laboratories are working together to establish a pan-European Research infrastructure of free-electron laser (FEL) light sources. Named IRVUX-FEL, the distributed facility will include Flash at DESY in Hamburg, Fermi at Elettra in Italy, Polfel in Swierk, Poland, and projects based in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

The facility will offer a suite of FEL light sources and instrumentation that will combine the range of synchrotron radiation with the ultra-short pulses and coherence of lasers, at a higher peak and average power levels. The consortium hopes to enable, for example, imaging of nanometre-scale objects at femtosecond shutter speeds.