The Soft X-ray Free-Electron Laser FLASH at DESY

FLASH, the Free-electron LASer in Hamburg, is the world’s first free electron laser for extremely bright and ultra-short pulses in the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray range. Efficient photon beam transport and diagnostics play an essential role in exploiting the features of this new generation of light sources in a large variety of user experiments. A detailed overview of the FLASH user facility is presented