[HN Gopher] Researchers get 'compact' hard X-ray machine to work
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       Researchers get 'compact' hard X-ray machine to work
        
       Author : afyzendo
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2024-12-05 21:55 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.tue.nl)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.tue.nl)
        
       | MisterTea wrote:
       | Good to see that the search for a table top synchrotron has
       | finally yielded fruit as this could pave the way for cheaper
       | research as lots of experiments require high brightness hard
       | x-rays.
       | 
       | Going back I had the opportunity to take two tours of the NSLS at
       | Brookhaven Labs when it was still in operation. I was a bit
       | intrigued by the idea of synchrotron radiation and was wondering
       | if this could be scaled down to a small room sized machine or
       | table top. Indeed - there were attempts but non that were
       | successful at that point - likely around 2008 - 2010.
        
       | philipkglass wrote:
       | This article didn't tell me much about how the machine works.
       | Further searching showed that it is a compact x-ray source that
       | works on the principle of inverse Compton scattering:
       | 
       | https://indico.jacow.org/event/44/contributions/440/
       | 
       |  _A tunable, tabletop, Inverse Compton Scattering (ICS) hard
       | X-ray source is being designed and built at Eindhoven University
       | of Technology as part of a European Interreg program between The
       | Netherlands and Belgium. This compact X-ray source will bridge
       | the gap between conventional lab sources and synchrotrons: The
       | X-ray photon energy will be generated between 1 and 100 keV with
       | a brilliance typically a few orders of magnitude above the best
       | available lab sources.
       | 
       | In the ICS process photons from a laser pulse bounce off a
       | relativistic electron bunch, turning them into X-ray photons
       | through the relativistic Doppler effect._
       | 
       | There's a presentation slide deck here with more details:
       | 
       | https://indico.cern.ch/event/1088510/contributions/4577523/a...
        
         | itishappy wrote:
         | Great find on that presentation.
         | 
         | > In the ICS process photons from a laser pulse bounce off a
         | relativistic electron bunch, turning them into X-ray photons
         | through the relativistic Doppler effect.
         | 
         | They make it sound so simple. Just bounce off a big thing
         | moving towards you to absorb some of it's energy. Fond memories
         | of the time I discovered this effect for myself using a
         | medicine ball and a friend's hamster I was petsitting at the
         | time.
        
       | itishappy wrote:
       | Looks like the new tech here is a "traveling wave RF photogun"
       | used to accelerate the electrons.
       | 
       | Here's a preprint from 2020 by the researchers that I'm assuming
       | describes their tech:
       | 
       | https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.00270
       | 
       | (Edit: Removed speculation that the system architecture was that
       | of a free-electron laser. Presentation shared by philipkglass
       | indicates it's something different.)
        
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