N-LIGHT - Novel Light Sources: Theory and Experiment

The N-Light project aims at providing the breakthrough theoretical and experimental advances for the virtual computational design and practical realisation of novel gamma-ray Light Sources (LS) operating at photon energies from ~100 keV up to GeV range that can be constructed through exposure of oriented crystals (linear, bent and periodically bent) to the beams of ultrarelativistic charged particles. An interdisciplinary research programme will combine theory, computational modelling and design of the crystals with the desired properties with the related technological and experimental developments. The N-Light research and technological programme will also address all the aspects of the processes accompanying the crystal exposure to irradiation by the beams that will be analysed on the atomistic level of detail. A broad interdisciplinary, international collaboration has been created in the frame of FP7PIRSES-CUTE and H2020RISE-PEARL projects, which were focused on initial experimental tests of the crystalline undulator (CU) idea, production and characterisation of periodically bent crystals and the related theory.
The current proposal aims at making the decisive steps towards practical realisation of the novel gamma-ray LSs such as CUs, crystalline synchrotron radiation emitters, and many others. The synchrotron radiation effect can be achieved by the propagation of a beam of ultrarelativistic charged particles through an oriented bent crystal in the channeling regime. A CU is a periodically bent crystal with exceptional lattice quality within which the beam exhibits the channeling motion. These LSs can emit intensive radiation in gamma-ray region. Additionally, the CU-based gamma-ray LS has a potential to generate coherent radiation (the FEL type) with wavelengths orders of magnitudes less than 1 Ångstrøm, i.e. within the wavelength range that cannot be reached in existing LSs based on magnetic undulators. Such LSs will have many applications in the basic science.

 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 872196