CURRENT AFFAIRS

Detailed explanation-1: -The 3.4-kilometre-long European XFEL, most of which is located in underground tunnels in Germany, will usher a new era of European research, according to scientists.

Detailed explanation-2: -The world’s most powerful X-ray laser, the European X-ray Free Electron Laser, has blasted its first sample. Firing pulses more than a trillion times more intense than sunlight, and often obliterating anything it touches, the XFEL may sound like a supervillain’s death ray.

Detailed explanation-3: -Back in 1975, Chapline and Wood suggested that an electron beam passing through a periodic electric or magnetic field could generate stimulated emission at X-ray wavelengths. The idea came from John Madey’s pioneering free-electron laser work at Stanford University.

Detailed explanation-4: -LCLS-II is what’s known as a hard X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL), an instrument designed to snap images of microscopic objects in high resolution and at ultrafast time scales.

Detailed explanation-5: -An X-ray laser is a laser device which emits in the spectral region of X-rays, i.e., with wavelengths of only a few nanometers. In this extreme spectral region, traditional laser gain media can not be used.