April 2021 - A community support letter for the “UK XFEL” project
To explore the UK and International community appetite for a next generation XFEL a survey was conducted to gather information and sample support for the UK XFEL project (which seeks to deliver such next generation capability). A survey was presented which included an opportunity to join a community endorsement that reads as follows:
“X-ray free electron lasers (XFELS) have emerged as important and wide-ranging tools for advanced science over the last decade. Their impact has been extensive (from catalysis and energy research to structural biology and laboratory astrophysics) and has opened-up a new era in research in structural dynamics. In the UK and around the world significant numbers of scientists have begun to engage with these opportunities, and many more are hoping to do so as the capabilities are developed, and as capacity grows so that it becomes easier to secure access.
The UK XFEL Science Case (https://www.clf.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/UK-XFEL-science-case.aspx) examines the transformative scientific opportunities that will be created with a Next Generation XFEL i.e. one that can deliver near transform limited pulses, high reproducibility, and synchronised to a wide range of external beams (e.g. lasers, THz and electrons) all delivered at a high repetition rate with a pulse structure matching state-of-the-art sample delivery and detector technologies. We strongly endorse this scientific vision, and fully support the next stage in the efforts to ensure that there is an overall capacity increase and that these new capabilities can be made available over the next decade for advancing science and technology."
UK XFEL - Scientific Case Project - 2019-2020 User Consultation exercise
As part of the revised UK Science Case for a UK XFEL a number of community consultation exercises took place from 2019 onwards. This initial phase of the consultation process was concluded in 2020. However details of the original science meetings including presentations by the various speakers from academia and industry can still be found here: UK XFEL - Scientific Case Project - 2019 User Consultation exercise
