MEC Science Drivers

The study of materials under extreme conditions (i.e. high energy density) has in the last decade garnered enormous scientific interest. Three report by the National Research Council [1], the National Science and Technology Council [2] and the National Academy of Sciences [3] identified it as an area where key scientific questions needed to be answered in the new millennium. 

However, the nature of matter in extreme conditions represent unique experimental challenges. First, such materials generally are generally of high density. This results in a plasma frequency larger than the frequency of available optical laser, and therefore standard laser probing techniques used in plasma physics experiments will not work in this over-dense material. 

Second, these materials are generally very short lived, and evolve in time rapidly on a femtosecond and picosecond timescale, making the long X-ray pulses of synchrotron facilities a bad match. 

The LCLS X-ray beam, however, is ideally suited to overcome both these problems. Additionally, its large photon number and exceptional brilliance can allow for both probing the matter using interactions with a low cross-section, or alternatively heating it homogeneously to high temperatures. 

The MEC end-station is explicitly designed to facilitate such experiments. It will combine a suite of diagnostics and high power lasers, which are standard fare in this field of research, with the unmatched LCLS X-ray beam, to create an instrument that will be at the forefront of, and have a major impact on MEC science.