European XFEL celebrated successfully guiding the X-ray laser beam into the experiment hall.
Today European XFEL celebrated successfully guiding the X-ray laser beam into the experiment hall. This marks another important milestone in the preparation for the start of user operation in September. In May, DESY and European XFEL successfully produced the first laser light in the tunnel. After several weeks of further progress, the laser beam has now reached the experiment hall in Schenefeld. At exactly midday today, scientists, engineers and guests in the control room of the SPB/SFX instrument in the experiment hall saw the first X-ray laser beam reach the SPB/SFX optics hutch. Shortly later it was confirmed that the beam had also reached the FXE instrument.
“There was a lot of rejoicing! Many people worked very hard to achieve this”, said SFB/SFX lead scientist Adrian Mancuso. “We’ve worked hard to get here and thank everyone who was involved in helping to achieve this milestone” said FXE lead scientist Christian Bressler. European XFEL Managing Director Robert Feidenhans’l, who was in the hutches to experience the beam successfully reaching the experiment hall said “this is very exciting! Now we can begin with the important work of commissioning the instruments.” User operation is due to begin in the autumn. Initially two of a total of six instruments will be available for experiments: the instrument FXE for the research of extremely fast processes and the instrument SPB/SFX for studying biomolecules and biological structures.
