The United States will—once again—be home to the world’s most powerful x-ray laser.
As it currently stands, the German X-ray Free Electron Laster (XFEL) technology touts the title of world’s most powerful X-ray. But Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory received the first of 37 cryomodules this week for its Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), reports New Atlas.
The shipment will boost the speed and power of the device from its current rate of 120 x-ray pulses per second to a million pulses per second. The two-mile “camera,” as the story describes it, will be capable of amplifying the x-rays it produces to 10,000 times the brightness they currently reach—and reclaim its title as the world’s most powerful x-ray machine.
How powerful is that exactly? During its time in operation, scientists have taken images of proteins and viruses in action, recreated conditions at the center of a star and recreated a black hole event in molecules.
Read more about it below.
Matt joined Chicago’s TriMed team in 2018 covering all areas of health imaging after two years reporting on the hospital field. He holds a bachelor’s in English from UIC, and enjoys a good cup of coffee and an interesting documentary.