Mid-Scale RI-2 Consortium: Compact X-ray Free-Electron Laser Project (CXFEL)

Modern science questions across many disciplines increasingly focus on understanding events, changes, and structures at the smallest atomic scales. The establishment of a Compact X-ray Free Electron Laser (CXFEL) facility at Arizona State University will enable these advanced studies and fulfill an urgent need in the broad U.S. research community to directly observe, manipulate, and control quantum dynamics in complex materials, molecules, and interfaces.

These capabilities will reveal novel biological processes, enable new energy-efficient technologies, and decode quantum behavior that can drive new computing methods and novel materials. A diverse population of undergraduate and graduate students will be engaged in the scientific and project management aspects of this mid-scale research infrastructure development effort.

The combination of infrastructure training and broad researcher access to transformative new instruments will serve the NSF mission priority to advance all fields of science and engineering.

The CXFEL is a novel instrument to produce sub-femtosecond coherent X-rays for analysis of a range of samples. CXFEL builds on the latest advances in laser technology and electron beam physics to produce a room-sized X-ray laser (roughly 10m long) with full coherence in time and space. The CXFEL will uniquely offer full control of the X-ray phase using electron-beam patterning that allows customized time-structure of the beam, e.g., attosecond pulses, very narrow linewidths, and extremely precise timing among multiple pulses with different colors.

Multiple end-stations will be configured to support X-ray spectroscopy, small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering, coincident attosecond momentum imaging, and time-resolved X-ray crystallography for studies in biology, quantum materials, atomic and molecular science, and optical sciences. During construction, sophisticated machine learning software will be integrated with the hardware to create highly flexible and efficient ultrafast science instruments that respond to NSF’s Big Ideas, including Midscale Research Infrastructure, Rules of Life, Quantum Leap, and Harnessing the Data Revolution.

The software tools will help guide acquisition and analysis of large data sets, speeding up experiments and expanding capabilities. The primary outcome of the CXFEL project is construction of a user-facility with instruments and end-stations, including validation of algorithms and experimental capabilities. The resulting facility will be accessible to a nationally and internationally distributed group of investigators from a range of different scientific disciplines.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.