The X-ray FEL: An experimenter's dilemma

The specifications of presently proposed x-ray free electron lasers (FELs) are for machines that will provide x-ray pulses as short as 100 fs with a photon energy as high as 12.3 keV. Since the pulse will contain as much as 5 mJ of energy, these devices will present the experimenter with an opportunity to expose matter to an unprecedented x-ray energy density. This high concentration of energetic x-rays presents both a promising frontier in energy-matter interaction, as well as a technological crevasse to be crossed by the experimenter attempting to use the FEL beam. The authors shall look at three possible problems confronting the experimenter: (1) synchronization of a detector, laser pulse, etc., to the FEL pulse; (2) radiation damage to the target sample; and (3) the presence of an electromagnetic pulse that could damage sensitive electronics located in the experimental area