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X-ray lasers work unlike other lasers in that they wiggle electrons to make light, and . They require a large facility and hundreds of people to support just one laser. Currently there are 8 X-ray lasers on the planet. These facilites facilities both compete with and support each other. Sharing information while cultivating their own specials sauce. Each of these lasers will have some capabilities unique to the others.
Here's some short videos to help explain LCLS to you and the people who wonder what what happens at this place you work and why it exists.
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LCLS does everything it can to make use the most of The Laser and it's associated tools of characterization available available for public use. But there is a rigorous and competitive select process that takes detailed technical proposals and months (often years) of planning + prep. And the actual use of the laser will come down to a few days with long, strange hours (LCLS runs 24 hours a day). Use of LCLS is free to the selected applicants (called users), but it costs thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of dollars an hour to operate.
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