The Dresden Advanced Light Infrastructure (DALI) planned at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now been classified by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) as a major scientific project particularly worthy of funding.
DALI is a light source in the terahertz (THz) frequency range, which is based on electron accelerators and is to be coupled with laser radiation. The world's most powerful terahertz source is intended to provide a precise view into the world of elementary quantum processes in practically every type of matter. The THz light pulses from DALI will be so intense that new, normally non-existent states of matter can be generated in a targeted manner. The facility uses several superconducting accelerators that accelerate billions of electrons per second to almost the speed of light. These extremely high-energy electron clouds are compressed to such an extent that they can ultimately emit pulsed THz radiation in unison using magnetic fields. At the same time, the laser beams make it possible to observe the processes generated with THz light. This ultimately produces a film that decodes the microscopic quantum processes in the sample with ultimate temporal precision.