It is well known that x-rays enable medical personnel to view inside the human body to diagnose broken bones and other hidden problems. More recent x-ray advances are making it possible to see events at the scale of atoms and molecules, revealing targets for new medicines and new materials for renewable energy and advanced computing. The development of the x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) opened a window on the chemical reactions of the molecules of life as they unfold in real time. The technology and the fundamental insights it provides hold promise to help speed the development of new cancer treatments, drugs to fight viral pandemics, and powerful quantum computers. But massive costs translate to limited access. The first XFEL cost around $1 billion to build and requires a giant, atom-smashing, kilometer-long particle accelerator facility. Less than 10 XFEL instruments exist worldwide. Arizona State University (ASU) is working to develop what it expects will be the world’s first compact version of an XFEL, a CXFEL. Dramatically smaller and less expensive, this garage-sized instrument promises to expand opportunities for researchers to explore atomic-scale events important for biochemistry, microelectronics, bioenergy applications, drug discovery and development, quantum computing, and more. “We believe this is the start of a new paradigm that will enable many institutions to follow in our footsteps, providing novel instruments for scientific breakthroughs,” said William Graves, who leads the CXFEL project at ASU. The CXFEL project comprises two light sources which, together, will enable a national-lab caliber user facility for forefront x-ray science, according to the university. The compact approach accelerates electrons to near light speed, structures them, and collides them with an intense laser beam to produce a highly directed beam of coherent x-rays that can access atomic-scale details invisible to longer wavelength light. The CXFEL instrument will fire extremely short x-ray pulses on the scale of a femtosecond. Like the strobe lighting of high-speed photography, these fleeting x-ray pulses can capture the ultra high-speed movements of electrons and atoms. Research lab assistant Antonella Semaan observes the laser at work in the CXFEL Lab at Arizona State University. Courtesy of Arizona State University/Samantha Chow. The scientists at ASU are working to finalize the commissioning of the compact x-ray light source (one of the two sources comprising the CXFEL) and begin using it to record the structure and dynamics of complex biomolecules and quantum materials. This latest milestone means that key power, safety, and operational parameters have already been successfully met, with the ability of the instrument to generate a stable electron beam and ultrashort x-rays to begin its first measurements for ASU and other scientists later this year. The light sources are expected to advance a broad range of fundamental science and applications. “For example, it will be extremely exciting to make a movie of how a virus binds to a cell and then visualize all the processes that allow the virus to enter the cell,” said ASU scientist Petra Fromme. Such information could be critical for better preparing the world against a future pandemic. “Another example would be to see how a cancer cell hides from destruction by the immune system,” said Fromme, director of the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery and a Regents Professor in the School of Molecular Sciences. This could usher in a new wave of cancer therapies.