At a press conference on 29 October, DESY announced that the new X-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL) is to be built in the German federal states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. Construction of the European X-ray laser project, which was approved by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research on 5 February 2003, is to start in 2006.
The 3.3 km long facility will begin on the DESY site in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld and run in a north-western direction to the town of Schenefeld (in the district of Pinneberg), which borders on Hamburg. Here, the experimental hall with its 10 measuring stations is to be erected. “We are pleased that we have found an ideally suited location for the new XFEL in the vicinity of DESY,” said Albrecht Wagner, chairman of the DESY Directorate. “Looking far into the future, one could think of connecting the linear accelerator of the X-ray laser with particle accelerators already existing on the DESY site in order to open up new opportunities for science.”
