According to a press release from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Cornell researchers are working on completing a device called an Energy Recovery Linac, or ERL, that promises to provide a much brighter source of X-Rays then are known today.

Today, X-Rays in physics research are mainly created using so called Synchrotrons, where electrons are accelerated around in a circle, and eventually undulated left and right using strong bar-magnets to produce x-rays (accelerating electrons produce light). The beam size of these synchrotrons are however limited, and that is where the Cornell team comes in. As far as i cant tell, it is more or less the same principle, they will also send the electrons through a circle and undulate it with strong bar-magnets to produce the x-rays, but the big difference is that in synchrotrons the same electrons are accelerated through the chamber again and again, but the ERL will only send them around once before slowing them down again and sending out a new batch of electrons. This process is suppose to make it possible to make much smaller beams, all the way down to the micron regime.

Now to me, the most exciting thing about this press-release is that they say that using this new better x-ray source, there is the potential of looking at much smaller things, that do not have to be in a crystalline form. Basically, today, everything we want to determine the structure of (at such small levels) needs to be in a crystal, that is to say, the molecules are arranged in an organized repeating pattern, which obviously strongly limits what things we can look at. In addition to that, they also compare the data that the new source can get, to the difference between a photograph and a video (the photograph being current technology). I must admit that i am not entirely sure of the physics that are involved in these ultra bright x-rays, but seeing as how the NSF and Cornell are releasing this, I’ll take their word for it..

I can highly recommend actually reading their press-release, it’s not as dry and boring as press-releases tend to be, and they also discuss possible uses for it (although it all seems a bit sensational to me). Also, there is a video there (access it here) with an interview with one of the scientists involved in the project.