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Asked by allo to Sam on 12 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by vickeryflower, palmerdix, poultneyparker, bubbles10, lappingwheeler, 3wan.
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Sam Vinko answered on 12 Mar 2012:
The detailes are rather complicated, and we’ve only been able to make such a machine 2 years ago (in comparison, we made it to the Moon over 40 years ago!), but the basic principle is pretty simple.
The idea is to generate a a small beam of electrons in a exceptionally good vacuum, and accelerate them almost to the speed of light by making them very energetic. Because the beam is travelling very close to the speed of light (remember, electrons cannot travel at the speed of light because they have mass, only light can go that fast!), it is called ‘relativistic’. This relativistic beam is made to travel through a set of very precise magnets, with alternating poles (so SNSNSN, where S is south and N is north). This causes the electrons to wiggle, and by doing this they emit X-ray light. If the conditions are just right, the light emitted is coherent, and X-ray laser emission is produced. We can then throw away the electron beam and use the X-rays for exciting new science!
This whole process is very challenging to get to work and takes a lot of space: the entire building is over 3 miles long!
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