European XFEL project set to start

MOSCOW, RUSSIA: RUSNANO CEO Anatoly Chubais will be signing the European XFEL GmbH shareholder agreement in Hamburg on the 30 November, 2009.

Also, a convention on the construction and operation of the European X-Ray free electron laser (XFEL) will be signed by authorized representatives of Germany, Russia, France, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, Greece, Denmark, Hungary and Slovakia. On behalf of Russia, the state convention will be signed by Andrei Fursenko, Minister of Education and Science of Russian Federation.

European XFEL is a unique scientific and technological complex for advanced research in the field of nanotechnology. The 3.4 km long underground facility at the DESY site in Hamburg will surpass the analogous lasers under construction in the USA and Japan.

The ultra-bright extremely short X-ray pulses with properties similar to laser light will reveal the processes in materials and biomolecules with the atomic resolution. This enables a further understanding of matter and produce unique new materials with predesigned properties.

The total cost of constructing world’s largest X-ray free electron laser is estimated at 1 bln Euro. The 250 mln Euro will be financed by RUSNANO as a representative of Russia. The main resource of the complex — beam usage time — will be shared proportionally to each country’s contribution to the project.

The Russian Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, the lead research organization of the Program for coordinating the research efforts in the field of nanotechnology and nanomaterials in Russian Federation will be responsible for directing the research and forming the scientific agenda of the Russian part of the project.