On July 12th, the “National Experimental Research Device Based on Adjustable Extreme Ultraviolet Coherent Light Source” jointly developed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences entered the official operation stage.
In 2012, the project was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, with a special fund of 103.3 million yuan. In October 2014, the “Dalian Light Source” experimental building officially broke ground. On September 24, 2016, the project team completed the development of the main infrastructure project and the main laser pointer light source device, and realized the first light output of the light source device.
“Dalian Light Source” is a scientific instrument that can emit light by itself to help humans explore the unknown world. It can operate in femtosecond or picosecond pulse mode. Each laser pulse produces more than 140 trillion photons. The single-pulse brightness is the brightest of all the extreme ultraviolet light sources in the world, and the wavelength can be in the entire extreme ultraviolet region (50- 150 nm) continuously adjustable with full coherence. 90% of the equipment of this device is independently researched and developed by China, which indicates that the related technology of China's free electron laser has reached the international advanced level.
The device currently built is only the first phase of the “Dalian Light Source”, and a more advanced Phase II project will be built in the future. Compared with the first phase project, the biggest difference of the second phase project is the increase of the repetition frequency.
"Dalian Light Source" is China's first large-scale free electronic laser scientific research user device, and is the only free-electronic laser pointer device in the world that operates in the extreme ultraviolet band. Its official operation has revolutionized the promotion of various scientific fields such as energy, chemistry, physics, biology, medicine and materials.