Nations sign accord for 1 bn euro laser
By DPA, IANSMonday, November 30, 2009
HAMBURG - Ten nations signed an accord in Hamburg to build a giant X-ray laser machine at a cost of more than 1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) to do scientific research.
The machine, code-named European XFEL, for “X-ray free electron laser,” will generate extremely intense X-ray flashes from 2014.
The ultra-short X-ray flashes - 30,000 times per second - will have a brilliance a billion times greater than that of the best conventional X-ray radiation sources and enable strobe pictures of atoms moving during chemical reactions.
The machine, built in 3.4 km underground tunnel in suburban Hamburg, will have a workforce of about 300 people running it. The site already operates other particle accelerator devices.
Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland signed the convention Monday. France and Spain will sign the convention later and China and Britain plan to join within the next six months.
