LCLS – Large Laser Infrastructure Development and Local Implications

Abstract

Abstract The most powerful now in the world, American Xray laser LCLS (Linac Coherent Light Source), has been working as a research and user facility since 2009. It is further developed to LCLS II machine at the Stanford National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC in Menlo Park CA. In a certain sense, LCLS II is a response to the EXFEL machine and a logical extension of LCLS. All these machines are light sources of the fifth generation. EXFEL is expected to open user facility in 2016, at a cost of over 1 mld Euro. LCLS II, which design started in 2010, will be operational in 2017. The lasers LCLS, LCLS II and EXFEL use SASE and SEED methods to generate light and are powered by electron linacs, LCLS by a warm one, and EXFEL by a cold one. The linacs have energies approaching 20 GeV, and are around 2 - 3 km in length. EXFEL linac uses SRF TESLA microwave cavity technology at 1,3GHz. A prototype of EXFEL was FLASH laser. SLAC Laboratory uses effectively over 50 years experience in research, building and exploitation of linear electron accelerators. In 2009, a part of the largest 3 km SLAC linac was used to build the LCLS machine. For the LCLS II machine a new infrastructure is build for two new laser beams and a number of experimental stations. A number of experts and young researchers from Poland participate in the design, construction and research of the biggest world linear and elliptical accelerators and FEL lasers like LCLS (Stanford), EXFEL (DESY) and CEBAF (JLab), and a few more. The paper concentrates on the development state-of-the-art of large laser infrastructure and its global and local impact, in the competitive world of R&D. LCLS infrastructure implications in Poland are considered.