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The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Cornell $18 million to begin development of a new, advanced synchrotron radiation X-ray source, called an Energy Recovery Linac (ERL). The ERL, based on accelerator physics and superconducting microwave technology in which Cornell’s Laboratory of Elementary Particle Physics (LEPP) is a world leader, will enable investigations of matter that are impossible to perform with existing X-ray sources. “The X-ray beams produced by the new source will be roughly a thousand times better in brightness, coherence, and pulse duration than currently is possible,” said Sol Gruner, Cornell professor of physics, who is the principal investigator of the ERL project.
Synchrotron radiation is generated when fast-moving electrons are forced to change direction. In the proposed facility, electrons will be pushed to within a fraction of the speed of light by a microwave beam in a linear accelerator (linac), made up of two straight tubes each about 1.3 kilometers long. The energetic electrons will be fed into the electron storage ring to make only one trip around the circle; then they will return to the linac where their energy will be recovered and used to push the next batch of electrons out. The ERL radiation may be used to determine the structure of cells and biological molecules that cannot be determined with current sources, information important both to basic science and the pharmaceutical industry. It also will make possible new study of advanced materials on a nano scale, giving more insight into how to make stronger metals and composites, better drug delivery systems, and more efficient optoelectronics. And the very fast pulses will make it possible to follow the structural changes that happen during important chemical reactions, both of life and chemical manufacturing processes. Cornell constructed the world’s first beam line to study synchrotron radiation in the early 1950s. Today, CHESS, which is directed by Gruner, is one of five national hard X-ray synchrotron radiation facilities funded by the NSF and the National Institutes of Health and is the only such facility in the United States located on a central university campus. —Simeon Moss |
The facility will be a major upgrade of the national-user synchrotron radiation facility, Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), which provides service to scientists and technologists from around the world, as well as to many departments at Cornell. The ERL will have value across the board, Gruner said, from research in biology and medicine to materials science and nanotechnology development. 