A desktop synchrotron particle accelerator could soon be able to freeze-frame the frenetic motion of atoms and molecules.
Using a laser, some gas, and a row of magnets, an international team of physicists has put together a source of “synchrotron light”, which they say can be easily upgraded to produce intense, ultra-short pulses of X-rays – ideal for probing the intricate structure of many kinds of matter.
“If it works out, you could have one of these in every university,” says the team’s leader Dino Jaroszynski of Strathclyde University in Scotland.
The prototype is an attempt to miniaturise the synchrotron light source. Synchrotrons are in great demand because their intense X-ray beams have so many uses, from analysing biological molecules to etching electronic components and seeing inside microscopic fossils.
But today’s synchrotrons are large-scale facilities such as the Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire, UK. There, a 100-metre-wide particle accelerator boosts electrons up to high speed, and the electrons generate X-rays when they fly through an undulating magnetic field.
