European XFEL camera to image molecules at 4.5 million frames per second

Swindon, England--An X-ray camera being built by the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), a United Kingdom publicly funded research council, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow (Glasgow, Scotland) will help the billion-euro European XFEL (X-ray Free-Electron Laser) contribute to drug discovery and other research once the facility becomes operational in 2015. Designed to image molecules at the unprecedented speed of 4.5 million frames per second, the camera has been approved following a visit to STFC by a delegation from the European XFEL's Detector Advisory Committee and will be constructed thanks to a nearly $4.9 million dollar (£3 million) prototype collaboration.

Now under construction near Hamburg, Germany, the European XFEL is a 2-mile-long facility that will use superconducting accelerator technology to accelerate electrons that generate X-ray flashes a billion times brighter than those produced by conventional X-ray sources. The advanced microelectronics capabilities and the ability to design other state-of-the-art imagers such as those for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, for example, clinched the decision to entrust construction of this high-speed imaging X-ray camera to the STFC.

Even though current X-ray cameras capture images when matter is bombarded by a constant beam of X-rays, the extreme brevity and intensity of the flashes produced by the European XFEL means that such cameras would not be suitable for use at the new facility. The STFC camera, however, will work in conjunction with hyper-short, hyper-brilliant X-ray flashes, enabling three-dimensional X-ray imaging that could map the atomic details of viruses, for instance, or pinpoint the molecular composition of individual cells and molecules.

Tim Nicholls of STFC says, "We’re delighted that the European XFEL has turned to STFC to build this pioneering camera. It demonstrates how the UK can provide the high-tech excellence that world markets need, leading to scientific advances that make a real difference to people’s lives."

SOURCE: Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC); www.stfc.ac.uk/About+STFC/36221.aspx