Event Details

The seminar will introduce the Free Electron Lasers for Infrared eXperiments (FELIX) facility and a new Lancaster-led initiative for IR and Thz nano-imaging.

Dr Michele Siggel-King^1,2 &Prof. Oleg Kolosov³

¹University of Liverpool, ²ASTeC DaresburyLaboratory, ³Lancaster University

FELIX comprises a suite of free-electron lasers covering thewide tunable range of 2.7-1500 μm (6‑3600 cm-1, 0.25-120 Hz, 0.75-450 meV). Thepulses can be tailored to individual needs including high intensity andultra-short pulses. The radiation can also be coupled to the High-FieldMagnetic laboratory with a magnet of up to 33T. FELIX offers radiation with aunique set of properties, which are not available in the UK and as such doesnot compete with any UK facility.

FLUENCE is an EPSRC-funded program to facilitate access by UKscientists to the FELIX suite of infrared and terahertz free electron lasers inNijmegen, The Netherlands. It aims to significantly expand the size and breadthof the UK community using FELIX by supporting new users and early careerresearchers in their first experiments on FELIX. The program also includes thepotential of two new and unique facilities at FELIX. One of these is thedevelopment of an IR & THz nano-imaging facility and the other is thedevelopment of a Catalysis, Astro-Science & Surface Science Facility.

IR& THz Nano-Imaging: The HiWin project willcommission a beyond-state-of-the-art system that allows the FELIX high powermid infrared (MIR) through THz (3.5 um – 150 um, 2-75 THz) radiation to beconcentrated to a 20-50 nm spot with the unique illumination and collectionefficiencies of up to 50%. HiWin will allow individual nanoparticles, inorganicand biological materials and nanoscale devices to be uniquely probed to obtaincritical nanoscale spectroscopic, chemical, and physical properties and theinvestigation of nanoscale phenomena. HiWin will use a state-of-the-artscanning probe microscope to target the area of interest to locally map and explorethese with the FEL radiation. For further details see https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~siggel/FLUENCE/ImagingMtg1/FP2call.pdf.

Catalysis,Astro-Science & Surface Science Facility on FELIX aims to extend the capabilities at FELIX byestablishing a facility enabling surface and catalytic phenomena to be studiedunder a variety of conditions from ultrahigh vacuum to in operando with gases,liquids and on solids.