New accommodation for XFEL's global researchers
Research to stay near laboratories
Commenting during the ceremony, Fegebank said: "The European XFEL stands for both excellent research on a world level, and the European idea of good neighbourliness and partnership. Researchers from all over Europe and the rest of the world conduct research here at the gates to Hamburg jointly and across borders to find the first answers to the big issues facing mankind." European XFEL's new accommodation will allow experts from all over the world to stay in close proximity to the laboratories. The Schenefeld-based research campus remains on a growth course and provides a research environment on a par with the world's top international research facilities.
Accommodation for 58 researchers
The new guest house, which has been built at a cost of some EUR 7 million and is operated by European XFEL, has 58 beds in 55 rooms and is also available to other guests and for events to the planned visitor centre. A large mural on the outside wall pays tribute to the British chemist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, who laid the foundation for Watson and Crick's elucidation of the DNA double helix structure with the help of so-called X-ray structure analysis. The guest rooms feature artistic images of various elements, instruments and parts of the X-ray laser.
The rooms display artistic images of various elements and sections of instruments and components of the X-ray laser, one of which was symbolically unveiled. (Picture: ©European XFEL / Axel Heimken)
Around 900 visiting researchers at XFEL
European XFEL is a cutting edge, international research facility in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. It enables 27,000 X-ray laser flashes per second and with a luminosity that is billions of times higher than the best conventional X-ray radiation sources. This opens up entire new research opportunities, e.g., for deciphering the atomic details of viruses and cells, 3D imaging in the nanocosmos, filming chemical reactions and processes such as those inside planets. European XFEL is a non-profit research organisation and employs 450 staff. It works closely with the DESY research centre and other international institutions. Around 900 researchers from 255 institutions in 28 countries visited European XFEL in 2019. The number of experimental stations and the beam time offered will continue to increase in future.
