27-01-2012: A group of scientists headed by Nina Rohringer from
the Hamburg Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL)
realized the first X-ray laser based on atoms at the Californian
research centre SLAC. Using neon atoms, they generated ultra-
short X-ray bursts of unique colour purity. In many cases, this
allows a sharper look into the nano world, as scientists
reported in the British journal “Nature” (DOI:
10.1038/nature.10721). CFEL is a joint enterprise of Deutsches
Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, the Max Planck Society and the
University of Hamburg. Max Planck scientist Rohringer and her
colleagues from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and
Colorado State University used the so-called free-electron laser
LCLS at SLAC for their experiments. With strong magnets, free-
electron lasers bring fast electrons accelerated by particle
accelerators on a zigzag course, thus generating laser like
radiation within the X-ray range. Unlike these, traditional
optical lasers are based on the radiation of atoms which