HiLUX is a £17.2M project over 4 years, that started in 2023, to invest in a major transformation of the ultrafast laser and infrared, Raman and XUV spectrometer infrastructure in the Central Laser Facility (CLF) on the Harwell Campus. HiLUX is housed within the CLF’s existing footprint in the Research Complex at Harwell.
The project will provide a new generation of multi-kHz lasers, detectors, sample handling technologies and efficient handling of large data sets. A 10-100 fold increase in average power of lasers will drive new “secondary light sources” that can span THz to XUV. A hundred-fold increase in laser repetition rate and data rate will unlock new science applications and greatly reduce timescales to results. HiLUX will provide national-scale facilities for training of young scientists, and will complement UK and international university infrastructure, synchrotron and XFEL large-scale facilities.
Part of the team behind HiLUX project
HiLUX will enable new research across a wide range of societally, environmentally and industrially important areas, including industrial biotechnology, energy storage, biomedical analysis, quantum devices, catalysis and photovoltaics. A few examples are:
• Chemical and biological catalysts are at the heart of the £multi-billion chemical manufacturing industries. HiLUX will enable new insights into the ultrafast chemical processes essential to answer unanswered questions about how catalysts work, improve chemical manufacturing and assist in greenhouse gas capture.
• The UK is a leader in the development of innovative laser spectroscopy techniques for biomedical diagnostics and analysis. There are also highly innovative opportunities to use advanced spectroscopies in drug design, development and screening. HiLUX will provide the step change in spectroscopic performance needed to grow this embryonic research field.
• Proteins are key targets for light-driven functions and tools for synthetic biology and industrial biotechnology applications. HiLUX will have the extraordinary sensitivity required to capture the complex interconnected processes in light-activated proteins.
• New devices for ultrafast computing and data storage rely on an understanding of how materials respond to ultrafast switching. HiLUX will be able to follow these switching processes in devices in unique detail.
Key objectives of HiLUX are:
• Provide a world-leading, flexible and resilient facility for ultrafast spectroscopy.
• Massively increase data rates and spectral coverage.
• Enable full exploitation of the much higher data rates, through new detectors and interfaces for high data volumes.
• Enable studies of industrially and societally relevant systems, through provision of advanced sample handling technology.
• Reach new user communities, by introducing new capability and lowering barriers to access for non-specialist users.
• Maximise our understanding of interconnected ultrafast processes, by enabling study of scientific problems through the widest variety of spectroscopic techniques.
• Contribute to advanced skills training (50% of CLF users are PhD students) in experimental and computational science.
Thanks to HiLUX, there is a high potential of reaching new user communities requiring advances in capabilities such as batteries, data storage and biomolecular interactions.
HiLUX-ULTRA HiLUX-Artemis
Click on the below links to reveal more information about upgrades on both ULTRA & Artemis Facilities
Techniques Techniques
- 2D-IR - X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS)
- Time-Resolved Multiple Probe Spectroscopy (TRMPS) - XUV Ptychography
- Short-pulse - XUV photoelectron spectroscopy (Material Science)
- Surface Sum Frequency Generation (SSFG) - DynAMO photo-emission & circularly polarised XUV
- Kerr-gated Raman
Contacts
