H2020-RISE Project "Novel Light Sources: Theory and Experiment" (N-LIGHT)
The N-LIGHT project suggests an interdisciplinary research programme that will provide the breakthrough needed in theory and experiment to design and deliver the practical realisation of novel gamma-ray Light Sources (LS) operating at photon energies from ~100 keV up to GeV range that can be constructed through exposure of oriented crystals (linear, bent and periodically bent) to the beams of ultrarelativistic charged particles. The N-LIGHT research and technological programme will address the physics of the processes accompanying the oriented crystal exposure to irradiation by the beams at the atomistic level of detail needed for the realisation of the N-LIGHT goals.
A broad interdisciplinary, international collaboration has been created previously in the framework of FP7-PIRSES CUTE and H2020- RISE PEARL projects, which performed initial experimental tests to demonstrate the crystalline undulator (CU) idea, production and characterisation of periodically bent crystals and the related theory. N-LIGHT aims to build on these successful studies towards the practical realisation of novel gamma-ray LSs, such as CUs, crystalline synchrotron radiation emitters, and many others. Additionally, a CU-based gamma-ray LS has the potential to generate coherent radiation (of the FEL type) with wavelengths orders of magnitude less than 1 Ångstrøm, i.e. within the wavelength range that cannot be reached in existing LSs based on magnetic undulators. Such LSs will have many applications in the basic sciences, including nuclear and solid-state physics and the life sciences. Theoretical, computational and experimental results obtained in the course of this project will be compared and validated and will pave the way for key technological developments of the LSs. The N-LIGHT international collaboration possesses all the necessary expertise to conduct the outlined programme successfully. The N-LIGHT research programme is highly collaborative. It brings the necessary expertise to realise the outlined goals through a series of exchange visits, joint workshops and conferences exploiting the structure and modes of a Marie Curie RISE programme.
