After a long time of research, studies carried out and a thousand more stories, it seems that finally the one baptized by the scientific community as the more powerful laser in the World it has finally started to operate. As a curiosity to tell you that, its location is in the German city of Hamburg So, at least this time, it has not gone to other places such as the United States, China or Japan, areas that seem to be lately are more prone to this type of inauguration.
Going into a little more detail, we must bear in mind that if we visit the area, firstly, we will not even have access to this peculiar laser and, secondly, we will not even be able to see the facilities since they are located in an underground location to 38 meters deep, an area where a group of specialists has built a tunnel of about 3,4 kilometers long. Organizations from up to eleven different countries have participated in the construction of this facility.
The most powerful human-made laser in the world to date has been christened European XFEL
As for the characteristics that makes this laser unique, tell you that we are facing a free electron laser or, by its name in English, X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL). This has been the type chosen because it, to function, uses accelerated electrons that are free not being bound to an atom. These electrons move through a magnetic field, something that in turn causes them to share the optical properties of conventional lasers even though they start from a completely different physical principle.
For this laser to work its designers have had to build a superconducting linear accelerator of about 1609 meters which, in turn, has also been listed as the largest on the planet built to date. This system is capable of producing a X-ray with a wavelength of only 0 nanometers, which is fired up to the sample on which the study is to be carried out so that the resulting wave that rebounds when hitting the sample is collected by a series of detectors that are located around it. Thanks to this, the images are obtained.
A unique laser to go further in scientific research
This laser is capable of generate up to 27.000 pulses per second which means that we speak of almost 200 times more than other lasers. This property allows it to act as if it were a high-speed camera, which is capable of capturing images of individual atoms in one millionth of a second. Thanks precisely to this, scientists, and this is where the real objective in terms of the creation of this laser system is, will be able to study elements as small as viruses and cells in much more detail to later scale their discoveries to objects the size of planets and stars.
Among the first scientists who will have the privilege of being able to work with this laser, highlight the team from the University of Oxford led by Justin wark, which will try to solve certain questions that are currently unknown about the center of the Earth itself. On the other hand we have researchers from Allen orvile who intend, with the help of this new tool, to understand the molecular mechanics of enzymes in order to be able to produce antibiotics thanks to being able to see in much more detail the complex reaction patterns that occur in them.
These are just part of the teams of researchers who have already been interested in the use of this laser and who, in a very short time, will begin to work using what is called the most powerful laser on the planet, the same as expected, in the middle and long term, it represents a remarkable advance in fields as complex as medicine and even in the development of new materials.