Konstantin Sukharnikov Scientific instrumentation

A hobby. An independent overview compiled from public sources by a science and space enthusiast. I am not involved in these missions or facilities; my own work is detector electronics at European XFEL. My projects →

Facility · X-ray lasers

LCLS / LCLS-II / LCLS-II-HE

X-ray free-electron laser with a copper and a superconducting accelerator (up to ~1 MHz)

Status
Upgrade
Location
SLAC, Menlo Park, USA
Operator
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US Department of Energy)
Next
early 2027 — superconducting linac restarts; 2027-10 — first light of LCLS-II-HE (plan)

Summary

The world's first hard X-ray free-electron laser (2009). LCLS-II added a 4 GeV superconducting accelerator running continuously; the LCLS-II-HE upgrade raises the energy to 8 GeV (184 new superconducting cavities with an average gradient of 22 MV/m) and extends the hard X-ray range at high repetition rate.

Now as of 4 Nov 2026

The superconducting linac has been off since late 2025 for the LCLS-II-HE installation; the accelerator is expected to restart in early 2027, while the copper linac keeps running (JACoW IPAC/LINAC). The LCLS town hall plan (July 2025) foresaw a long shutdown from January 2026 to January 2027 and first HE light in October 2027 (LCLS Town Hall, PDF).

Key dates

  1. 2009LCLS first lightdone
  2. 2023LCLS-II first light (superconducting linac)done
  3. Dec 2025Record: ~93 kHz, close to 100,000 pulses per seconddone
  4. Jan 2026 – Jan 2027Superconducting linac shut down for LCLS-II-HEongoing
  5. Oct 2027LCLS-II-HE first lightplanned

Results

  1. Dec 2025LCLS approaches 100,000 pulses per second (93 kHz), a world record for an X-ray laser — InMenlo

Timeline

  1. 29 Apr 2026A key instrument back online, an upgrade milestone — Photonics Online