THE LUNEX5 PROJECT

LUNEX5 (free electron Laser Using a New accelerator for the Exploitation of X-ray radiation of 5th generation) aims at investigating the production of short, intense, and coherent pulses in the soft X-ray region. The project consists of a Free Electron Laser (FEL) line enabling the most advanced seeding configurations: High order Harmonic in Gas (HHG) seeding and Echo Enable Harmonic Generation (EEHG) with in-vacuum (potentially cryogenic) undulators of 15 and 30 mm period. Two accelerator types feed this FEL line : a 400 MeV Conventional Linear Accelerator (CLA) using superconducting cavities compatible with a future upgrade towards high repetition rate, for the investigations of the advanced FEL schemes; and a 0.4 - 1 GeV Laser Wake Field Accelerator (LWFA), to be qualified in view of FEL application, in the single spike or seeded regime. Two pilot user experiments for timeresolved studies of isolated species and solid state matter dynamics will take benefit of LUNEX5 FEL radiation and provide feedback of the performance of the different schemes under real user conditions.