Superconducting Accelerators as Sources for Intense Secondary Radiations

The Helmholtz-Center Dresden-Rossendorf operates a superconducting electron linear accelerator (named ELBE radiation source) as a driver for secondary beams of electromagnetic radiation, neutrons, and positrons. The combination of high-intensity secondary beams, superior timing resolution, and adjustable beam repetition rates allows performing experiments, which are hardly possible using alternative technologies. The facility runs as a dedicated user facility thus serving an international community. Applications range from tunable coherent infra-red radiation from an Free-Electron Laser, coherent super-radiant THz radiation with sub-ps timing, high-energy gamma-rays and neutrons for nuclear physics to secondary positron beams for materials research.
Several recent scientific results will be presented and plans for a successor, the Dresden Advanced Light Infrastructure (DALI), will be shown.