The Munich Compact Light Source (MuCLS) is a mini synchrotron capable of creating a nearly monochromatic, energy tunable X-ray beam. X-rays are generated via inverse Compton scattering when an electron bunch circulating at 65 MHz in a miniature storage ring collides with high power laser pulses stored in a resonant optical cavity. This new generation X-ray source is able to deliver synchrotron-quality data for a wide variety of laboratory experiments. The MuCLS, installed on the campus of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) at the Munich School of BioEngineering, within the Centre for Advanced Laser Applications, is utilized for groundbreaking biomedical imaging research.
In an article published in 2016*, the TUM team stated that the mean flux measured when the MuCLS was commissioned in 2015 was in excess of 1 x 1010 photons/sec at 35 keV. Increasing the X-ray flux is desirable to shorten data acquisition times and to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of measurements. In early April 2017, the high-power laser system was upgraded on the MuCLS which increased the stored laser power in the optical cavity of the system from 100 kW to >300 kW. The X-ray flux at 35 keV was subsequently measured to be in excess of 3 x 1010 ph/s at 35 keV.
Michael Feser, CEO at Lyncean Technologies, manufacturer of the MuCLS said, "This upgrade to the Lyncean Compact Light Source is the first of many in our development pipeline to be released. Further increases in X-ray flux and the ability to extend the usable energy range from 4 keV up to 100 keV will expand the covered application space and enable researchers to perform even more experiments away from a synchrotron. "
"We are very happy with the increase in flux that the upgrade has brought us," said Prof. Franz Pfeiffer, leader of the MuCLS TUM team, "Our high resolution and fast imaging applications are especially benefiting from the increased performance. We are looking forward to working with Lyncean to break through the 1011 ph/s flux barrier in the future."
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* Eggl, E. (2016). The Munich Compact Light Source: Initial performance measures. Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, 23. doi:10.1107/s160057751600967X
About Lyncean Technologies
Lyncean Technologies, Inc. is located in Fremont, California and was founded in 2001 to develop the Compact Light Source (CLS), a miniature synchrotron x-ray source based on research performed at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University. By replacing the conventional "undulator" magnets found in the large synchrotrons by laser technology, the entire device scales down in size by a factor of 200 in the CLS. The first commercial Lyncean CLS was purchased by researchers at TUM within the framework of the Center for Advanced Laser Applications in Germany, a joint project of the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and the Technical University Munich (TUM). The Munich CLS has been in routine operation since April 2015. For more information visit: http://www.lynceantech.com and http://www.tum.de