CompactLight: to compact accelerators and beyond

The Horizon 2020-funded project, CompactLight, will soon begin to design the first hard X-ray Free Electron Laser based on 12 GHz X-band technology. A consortium of 21 leading European institutions, including industries, together with the Shanghai Institute Of Applied Physics, the Australian Synchrotron, and the University of Melbourne, are partnering up to achieve this  goal within the 36-month duration of the recently-awarded grant. The ambition of the CompactLight collaboration goes even beyond compact acceleration, as the consortium aims at simultaneously investigating and developing the next generation of undulators.