September 1 marks two years since the official opening and start of user operation at European XFEL. With the scheduled expansion from two to six operational instruments, the facility has expanded its experimental capacity and possibilities significantly during the past two years. At the same time, both the performance of the X-ray free-electron laser and instruments was continually improved. The scientific community shows strong interest in experiments at the new facility, with a total of 363 submitted proposals during this period, of which 98 were awarded beamtime. In total, 1200 users from across the world came to Schenefeld for their research. As the facility continues to be developed, even more time will be available for user experiments in the future. Over the past two years, a total of 4032 hours were provided for external researchers, whereby some 6 petabytes of data were collected. Already five user publications have been published in peer-reviewed journals with many more in preparation.
About European XFEL
The European XFEL is a 3.4 km long research facility extending from Hamburg to the neighbouring town of Schenefeld in the German Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein. With its repetition rate of 27,000 pulses per second and a peak brilliance a billion times higher than that of the best synchrotron X-ray radiation sources, the European XFEL enables the investigation of scientific problems in a variety of disciplines, including among many others: Structural Biology, Chemistry, Planetary Science, the study of matter under extreme conditions.
