The SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser, referred to as SACLA (pronounced '' さくら (Sa-Ku-Ra)''), is an X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) in

Harima Science Garden City Harima Science Garden City(播磨科学公園都市, Harima-Kagaku-Koen-Toshi) is a city constructed by opening up a hilly area in Harima, the southern-west part of Hyogo Prefecture. The city straddles Tatsuno, Kamigori and Sayo. The address ...

, Japan, embedded in the

SPring-8 SPring-8 (an acronym of Super Photon Ring – 8 GeV) is a synchrotron radiation facility located in Sayo Town, Sayo District, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, which is the main facility of Harima Science Garden City. It was developed jointly by RIKEN ...

accelerator and synchrotron complex. When it first came into operation 2011, it was the second XFEL in the world and the first in Japan.

Design

Like other XFELs, SACLA uses

self-amplified spontaneous emission Self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) is a process within a free-electron laser (FEL) by which a laser beam is created from a high-energy electron beam. The SASE process starts with an electron bunch being injected into an undulator, with a ...

to achieve extremely high intensities of X-rays. SACLA uses in-vacuum, short-period

undulator An undulator is an insertion device from high-energy physics and usually part of a larger installation, a synchrotron storage ring, or it may be a component of a free electron laser. It consists of a periodic structure of dipole magnets. These ca ...

s, which is one of the unique factors in its design that allows it to achieve sub-Ångstrom wavelengths of 0.6 Å at a relatively much shorter distance of 0.7 km, compared to other similar XFELs like LCLS (2 km) or the

European XFEL The European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Facility (European XFEL) is an X-ray research laser facility commissioned during 2017. The first laser pulses were produced in May 2017 and the facility started user operation in September 2017. The interna ...

(3.4 km). An 8.5 GeV electron beam is used as the source.

Animated Short Films

SACLA has released a number of

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

s to promote its research capabilities to the public. In July 2013, SACLA released two animated short films titled "Picotopia", which discussed the cellular biology, and "Wasureboshi", which is about conception. On December 3, 2013, another animated short titled "Mirai Koshi: Harima SACLA" was released to promote the XFEL's ability to detect atoms and molecules.

Design

Animated Short Films

References

Further reading