Each undulator comprises a precision-tuned array of ultra-strong neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets and vanadium permendur magnetic poles. The magnets and poles are mounted in aluminum structures bolted into a 3.4-meter-long titanium strongback. The strongback secures the magnet and pole assemblies, counteracts the very high magnetic forces between the upper and lower magnetic arrays, and is critical in determining the thermal and mechanical stability of the undulator. Precision and stability requirements for the LCLS devices far exceed those for existing undulators at the Advanced Photon Source and other light-source facilities.

The pulses of X-ray laser light from LCLS, a fourth-generation light-source, will be shorter and a billion times brighter than can be produced by any other X-ray source available now or in the near future.

These advanced characteristics will aid scientists in discovering and probing new states of matter, understanding and following chemical reactions and biological processes in real time, imaging chemical and structural properties of materials on the nanoscale, and many new and exciting discoveries we cannot even imagine today, said Marion White, senior physicist at APS. The LCLS will enable revolutionary new science.