Inside the World's Most Powerful X-Ray Laser

The quadruple magnet helps the electron beam maintain its precise shape before it enters the undulator magnet.

LCLS construction site, with lights of San Francisco on the horizon.

The Front End Enclosure that later housed diagnostic equipment for monitoring the x-ray beam.

: Meter-thick concrete walls used in the construction to shield humans from x-rays.

LCLS injector which provides a pulse for the firing of the injector gun.

Together, the injector gun and the accelerator section combine to create x-ray laser light.

Before x-rays can be generated, the LCLS uses "bunch compressors" to focus, or tighten, the electron beam.

Artist's conception of device that could take holographic images of single molecules.

A pulse of ultra-violet light (in red) from the main laser bounces off a mirror and onto the surface of the cathode gun. That produces a pulse of electrons (in blue).

3-D Holographic images of single molecules will get produced using ultrafast pulses of very intense hard x-rays.

An array of high-precision undulator magnets where x-ray beams are produced.

Rendering of single undulator magnet, which is about 2 meters long and weighs one ton.

Sample holder mounted with a gonometer similar to the devices which will be used at the LCLS.

A look inside the Undulator Hall prior to installation of the undulator magnets.

Only 12 of the 33 undulator magnets (silver-tone oblongs) were needed to create the first pulses of laser light

Engineers measure and calibrate the LCLS undulator magnets.

The main laser bay, which creates an initial pulse of ultraviolet light that gets converted to an electron beam by the injector gun housed 30 feet below.

Example of laser setup experiment that LCLS can help conduct.

The LCLS construction project extends SLAC's original two-mile Linac by an additional half mile, which includes x-ray transport tunnels and two experimental halls.

Artists depiction of the electron beam and x-ray photon beam being separated. The electrons are discarded in the Beam Dump, and the x-ray pulse travels through to a suite of diagnostic equipment and focusing optics before entering the experimental areas.