European XFEL to shine as brightest, fastest x-ray source

On the 6th October the €1.4 billion European x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) officially started a 4-month period in which the facility's superconducting electron accelerator will be put through its paces.

Next June it will be producing the world's brightest and fastest pulses of x-ray light to

materials scientists and structural biologists probing the atomic structure of molecules in natural settings. XFEL's unique selling point, compared to other international facilities, is its rapid-fire capability, more than 200 times faster than its competitor, the Linac Coherent Light Source at Stanford in California.

Edwin Cartlidge describes in Science magazine how machines using x-ray free electron lasers are revolutionizing the field, and what improvements the community can expect in the near future at other facilities.