DESY

DESY, short for Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (English: German Electron Synchrotron), is a national research centre for fundamental science located in Hamburg and Zeuthen near Berlin in Germany.

[1][2] In addition to operating its own large accelerator facilities, DESY participates in many major international research projects, for example the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser in Germany, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, the Belle II experiment in Japan, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole and the worldwide Cherenkov Telescope Array.

It has a circumference of 2,304 m. Until 1986, electrons and positrons collided in PETRA for research in particle physics (experiments JADE, MARK-J, TASSO and PLUTO).

From 1990 on, PETRA served as a pre-accelerator for the HERA storage ring, and from 1995 on also as a synchrotron radiation source with two test experimental stations.

Since 2009, the facility has been delivering hard X-ray beams of very high brilliance to over 40 experimental stations under the name PETRA III.

FLASH provides ultrashort light pulses in the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray range for seven experimental stations and is also used as a test facility for the development of accelerator and FEL technologies.

[12] Since 2001, the DESY site in Zeuthen has been home to the photoinjector test facility PITZ, a linear accelerator used to study, optimise and prepare the electron sources for FLASH and (since 2015) for the European XFEL.

To this end, the division develops, builds and operates beamlines and experiments at the DESY light sources PETRA III and FLASH.

[21] The Particle Physics division is involved in the large-scale experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva.

As part of the international collaborations that run the ATLAS and CMS experiments, DESY contributes to many developments at the LHC, from hardware design and data analysis to preparations for the planned upgrades.

Detectors and telescopes are used to analyse neutrinos and gamma rays from space, which can provide information about cosmic phenomena: black holes, exploding stars and radiation bursts of extreme intensity.

In 1987, the ARGUS experiment at DORIS was the first to observe a large mixing of B mesons and thus a process in which matter and antimatter behave differently.

[26][28] The most important discovery of the experiments TASSO, JADE, MARK-J and PLUTO at PETRA was the detection of the gluon, the messenger particle of the strong force, in 1979.

In these collisions, the point-like electron acted like a probe, scanning the inner structure of the proton and making it visible with high resolution.

[26][29] In parallel, as early as the 1960s, research groups from DESY, various universities and the Max Planck Society developed the technology for using the synchrotron radiation produced by the accelerators.

[31] It provided measuring stations at DORIS, and it was here that the Israeli biochemist Ada Yonath (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009) conducted experiments from 1986 to 2004 that led to her deciphering the ribosome.

[33][34] With the shutdown of DORIS in early 2013, the name HASYLAB was abandoned, and the use of DESY's light sources has since been carried out in its Photon Science division.

[36] In 2000 to 2001, the test facility at DESY was the first free-electron laser in the world to produce light flashes in the vacuum ultraviolet and soft X-ray range.

[37] Today, the FLASH facility produces ultrashort light pulses in the soft X-ray range for seven experimental stations.

It offers commercial companies support for industrial issues, e.g. through special industry access to photon sources and laboratories, develops ideas, applications and products based on fundamental research, and supports its employees in founding start-ups based on DESY technologies in the Hamburg and Brandenburg regions.

Main entrance of the DESY campus in Hamburg
View inside the PETRA III "Max von Laue" hall on the DESY campus in Hamburg
FLASH2 experimental hall on the DESY campus in Hamburg
LINAC II and DESY II are electron pre-accelerators for the storage ring PETRA III, which, together with the free-electron laser FLASH, serves as a light source for photon science. Also shown is the European XFEL X-ray laser, which runs from the DESY campus to the town of Schenefeld in Schleswig-Holstein.
The superconducting resonators used in the linear accelerators of the free-electron laser FLASH and the European XFEL X-ray laser are processed and assembled in a cleanroom.
Experiments to investigate the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the PETRA III synchrotron radiation source at DESY
In the Detector Assembly Facility (DAF) at DESY, new, more radiation-resistant and precise silicon tracking detectors are produced for the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC accelerator at CERN (here for CMS).
DESY produces a large part of the digital optical modules for the neutrino observatory IceCube at the South Pole.
German 1984 postal stamp – 25th anniversary of the foundation of DESY
The ARGUS detector at the former electron–positron storage ring DORIS at DESY
In 1979, the particle physics experiments at the electron–positron storage ring PETRA at DESY discovered the gluon, the messenger particle of the strong force.
"Max von Laue" experimental hall at the synchrotron radiation source PETRA III on the DESY campus in Hamburg
In the free-electron laser FLASH at DESY, electrons generate laser light in the soft X-ray range as they pass through special magnetic arrangements known as undulators (yellow).
Inside the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) in Hamburg
The Start-up Labs Bahrenfeld, an innovation centre of DESY, the University of Hamburg and the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg were opened in September 2021.