According to a report on the British "New Scientist" website on the 18th, the Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II) X-ray laser at Stanford's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the United States has just completed an upgrade that lasted more than ten years. After being "renovated", it has become the brightest X-ray facility in the world. It has also emitted the first beam of X-rays with record-breaking brightness, allowing researchers to record the behavior of atoms and molecules in biochemical reactions such as photosynthesis with unparalleled detail.
LCLS-II produces X-rays through a complex process. First, the researchers used an ultraviolet laser to separate electrons from a copper plate, then accelerated the electrons with intense microwave pulses, which then passed through a "maze" of thousands of magnets. In the process, these electrons swing back and forth, emitting X-rays in a predictable and controllable way. Researchers direct these X-ray pulses at objects and can image their internal structures.
The X-rays produced by LCLS-II are 1 trillion times brighter than those used in the medical field and 10,000 times brighter than those produced by its predecessor, LCLS.
SLAC's Mike Dunn explained that the brightness of the X-rays was increased in part because they refurbished a 3-kilometer-long metal tube through which electrons pass with a niobium lining. When cooled to around -271°C, niobium can withstand unprecedented high-energy electrons.
Nadia Zazepin from La Trobe University in Australia pointed out that LCLS-II allows researchers to observe in unprecedented detail how biochemical processes occur at the atomic scale, making it possible to produce "molecular movies" of biological processes, such as mammalian visual imaging processes, photosynthesis, drug binding and gene regulation.
Dunn also said that LCLS-II can produce a large amount of bright X-rays in a very short time, allowing researchers to see what is happening inside materials, such as materials for artificial photosynthetic devices or next-generation semiconductors, superconductors, etc. LCLS-II is a very versatile research tool, like a powerful microscope that can observe the details of everything from quantum materials to biological systems, from catalytic chemistry to atomic physics.