HZDR operates multiple research facilities: •
ELBE is a Center for High-Power Radiation Sources and HZDR's largest research facility. It encompasses a superconducting Electron Linear accelerator for beams with high Brilliance and low Emittance (ELBE) and two FEL for the mid and far infrared spectra. In addition, the electron beam delivers multiple other secondary beams (quasi-monochromatic
X-rays, polarized
Bremsstrahlung, pulsed neutron beams and pulsed mono-energetic
positrons). • The high-power laser
Dresden Laser Acceleration Source (DRACO), a titanium:sapphire laser, achieves a power of 1 PW by means of chirped pulse amplification and is used to accelerate protons and electrons to high energies using laser plasma acceleration. DRACO is part of HZDR's ELBE Center for High-Power Radiation Sources. • With PEnELOPE, another laser system with petawatt energies is under construction. It is a short-pulse laser source in the petawatt range pumped by diode lasers. In particular, it is intended to enable the laser-assisted acceleration of protons for medical applications. The ultimate goal is to replace the large particle accelerators required today for proton beam cancer therapy with much more compact facilities. • The
Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory (Hochfeld-Magnetlabor Dresden, HLD) is located directly next to ELBE in order to be able to perform combined experiments. Here, particularly strong pulsed magnetic fields are generated. Magnetic fields of up to 100 tesla are available here for materials research. The coils, which were also developed at the site, can generate fields of 95 tesla for fractions of a second (as of May 2017). The coils are cooled to around -200 °C with liquid nitrogen and a current of several tens of thousands of amperes flows through them for a short time. A capacitor bank is used for this purpose (Fig.). At HLD, the fundamental, quantum mechanical properties of magnetism are also investigated and new components such as high-temperature superconductors are developed. HLD is a user facility and partnering in the EU project
European Magnetic Field Laboratory (EMFL), a consortium dedicated to unite and coordinate the existing European high magnetic field laboratories. • The Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (HIBEF) was set up by the HZDR together with the
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) at the X-ray laser
European XFEL in
Hamburg. HIBEF combines the X-ray radiation of the European XFEL with two superlasers, a powerful magnetic coil and a platform for research with diamond stamp cells. In this way, the behavior of matter under the influence of exceptionally high pressures, temperatures and magnetic fields can be studied with unprecedented precision. • The Ion Beam Center (IBC) offers the possibility of selectively bombarding samples with charged atoms of various light and heavy chemical elements coming from different sources. These plasma and ion sources generate ions of all species at energies between 10 eV and 50 MeV. Several machines can accelerate the projectiles to different energies, which allows their effect on the sample to be controlled. Depending on the element and energy, these ion beams are suitable for investigating or selectively modifying samples. These machines are used primarily for the development of tiny electronic components, layered semiconductor systems such as in solar cells, or optical materials such as the transparent but conductive surfaces of modern screens. IBC is funded as a user facility by the EU. • ROBL, the Rossendorf Beamline at the
ESRF in Grenoble/ France, comprises two facilities for radiochemical experiments. • The
PET Center is operated together with
Technische Universität Dresden and University Hospital Dresden. Researchers are developing imaging methods for cancer diagnosis as well as new approaches to cancer treatment. Together, these institutions also operate the National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology – OncoRay. • The thermohydraulic test facility TOPFLOW investigates stationary and transient phenomena in two-phase flows and develops models derived from Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) Codes. • The DREsden Sodium facility for DYNamo and thermohydraulic studies (DRESDYN) is intended as a platform both for large scale experiments related to geo- and astrophysics as well as for experiments related to thermohydraulic and safety aspects of liquid metal batteries and liquid metal fast reactors. Its most ambitious projects are a homogeneous hydromagnetic dynamo driven solely by precession and a large
Taylor-Couette type experiment for the combined investigation of the magnetorotational instability and the Tayler instability. == Departments ==