Initially taking shape! This "national heavy equipment" will produce the "brightest light" on Earth after completion

Large scientific facilities refer to major national scientific and technological infrastructure, which are the "weapons" for my country to achieve many major scientific and technological breakthroughs and build a strong country in science and technology. For example, the familiar radio telescope - China's Sky Eye FAST. During the May Day holiday, many large scientific facilities in my country are still under construction, and scientists and builders are working overtime to ensure the smooth progress of the project. In the next few days, we will go to the construction sites of these "national heavy equipment" to understand their important role. Today's first stop, we will go to Beijing Huairou Science City.

The main project of high-energy synchrotron radiation source has begun to take shape

In Huairou Science City, a large scientific facility - High Energy Synchrotron Radiation Source is under construction. After four years of construction, the main body of the project has taken shape. Looking down from the air, the High Energy Synchrotron Radiation Source consists of three main buildings, and the overall building looks like a magnifying glass, which is used to "probe the microscopic world." It is not difficult to see from the picture that the comprehensive laboratory building and the user service building constitute the "handle" of the "magnifying glass", while the largest circular building is the light source device area and the core building, which is the "frame" of the "magnifying glass." It is said that after completion, it can produce the "brightest light" on earth.

The brightest light is 1 trillion times brighter than the sun

If the high-energy synchrotron radiation source is compared to a magnifying glass, the position where I am is the core "frame" part. Because the accelerator device is still under construction and debugging, we can take a close look. By 2025, after the high-energy synchrotron radiation source is completed and put into operation, it will produce the world's "brightest synchrotron radiation light", which is 1 trillion times brighter than the sun, can illuminate the microscopic world, and will become a national heavy tool for scientists to explore the microscopic world.

Accelerating electron production to illuminate the microscopic world

How is the brightest light produced? There is a schematic diagram on the display board. The basic principle is to accelerate electrons and produce light. In the linear accelerator, the energy of electrons from the high-voltage electron gun is accelerated to 0.5 GeV, and then accelerated from 0.5 GeV to 6 GeV, that is, 6000 mega-electron volts, in the booster. Finally, the electrons enter the large storage ring outside. Here, the electrons run at a speed close to the speed of light, and they will produce beams of very critical synchrotron radiation along the tangent direction for our scientific research.

In fact, synchrotron radiation is also relatively easy to understand, because in our daily lives, there is a very similar scene, just like when it rains, many people have had this experience, if we turn the umbrella, clusters of water droplets will fly out along the tangent direction of the umbrella edge, just like beams of light thrown out. These X-ray beams emit at very small angles, and the photons are very concentrated, so the ability to illuminate and detect the microscopic world is very strong.

It may seem simple, but it is actually very difficult to make invisible electrons running at a speed close to the speed of light run according to the planned orbit. For example, in the booster part, the electrons are running in the vacuum pipe in the middle while increasing their energy. In this process, we see that the surrounding devices are magnets, including dipole iron, quadrupole iron, and sextupole iron. They have different numbers of north and south poles, and different effects on electron confinement. They can adjust the direction and angle of the electrons running together, and make the electrons running at the speed of light run according to the required orbit through extremely fine control.

Linear accelerator electron beam meets design specifications

After four years of construction, the high-energy synchrotron radiation source has not only been basically completed as a whole, but also successfully accelerated the first electron beam in March this year when the linear accelerator emitted full energy. The research team told reporters that after more than a month of debugging, the electron beam of the linear accelerator has now reached the design indicators. The equipment in the booster part has also been installed and initially debugged. In the next stage, it will be jointly debugged with the linear accelerator to increase the electron beam energy to 6000 mega-electron volts, which is also a very critical step.

In 2025, after the completion of this national important device, what changes will the brightest synchrotron radiation bring to our exploration of the microscopic world? Let us look forward to it together.

High-energy synchrotron radiation sources have broad application prospects in the future

The high-energy synchrotron radiation source under construction is the fourth generation of synchrotron light sources in my country. The reporter said that their evolution is like the transition from black-and-white TV images to color TVs, LEDs, and then to 4K high-definition. So in what fields can the strongest light on the surface of the earth be used in the future?

A high-energy synchrotron radiation source is a large scientific device that provides high-performance X-rays. Its core components include accelerators, beam lines, experimental stations, etc. It has the characteristics of low emissivity, high brightness, high energy, super penetration and high resolution. The emitted synchrotron light basically covers infrared, visible light, vacuum ultraviolet, X-ray and other bands.

Pan Weimin, Chief Director of the High Energy Synchrotron Radiation Light Source Project: Through our high energy synchrotron radiation light source, we can see the changes of nano-scale materials and track these changes in real time and in situ. We can conduct in-depth research on the regulation and generation of materials, as well as the changes in stress during their manufacture. This will be of great help to the preparation, service and stress analysis of new materials and some of our high-end materials, such as aviation materials.

At present, my country has completed the layout of four generations of synchrotron radiation sources. The first generation of synchrotron radiation source is the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility parasitic on the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider. The second generation of synchrotron radiation source is located in Hefei, the third generation of synchrotron radiation source is located in Shanghai, and the fourth generation is the high-energy synchrotron radiation source under construction in Huairou. It focuses on the study of the microstructure of matter and its evolution, and will be gradually applied to aerospace, energy environment, biomedicine and other fields in the future. The development from the first to the fourth generation of synchrotron radiation sources is like the evolution from black and white TV, color TV, LED to 4K HD.

Pan Weimin, Chief Director of the High Energy Synchrotron Radiation Light Source Project: This is also one of the brightest light sources in the world, which is equivalent to our flashlight. At the beginning, it was scattered light, could not shine very far, and was very blurry. Later, it developed into a flashlight with very strong light, very bright, shining very far, and objects can be seen clearly. We can perform real-time, in-situ, and multi-dimensional characterization and detection of a microscopic substance. There are many applications in the development of new materials in energy, life sciences, medicine and health, petrochemicals, and physical materials.

(CCTV reporter Shuai Junquan and Zheng Weiwei)