Insight into Matter
KIT Uses FLUTE to Study Technologies for Tomorrow’s Compact Accelerators

FLUTE is the German acronym of “Far Infrared Linac and Test Experiment.” Its key component is a compact linear accelerator at KIT’s Institute for Beam Physics and Technology (IBPT). The versatile test facility is used to study new methods for accelerators to compress electron packages and to compare various strategies for generating intensive terahertz radiation. “FLUTE is a dream for accelerator physicists, as we can test a number of novel and groundbreaking concepts in a modular experiment,” says leading scientist Professor Dr. Anke-Susanne Müller. “In particular, we want to develop highly reliable accelerator technologies that produce high electron beam stability and thus have considerable application potential,” adds engineer Dr.-Ing. Robert Ruprecht, Head of Coordination Accelerator Systems at KIT. In materials science, chemistry, biology, and medicine, chemical bonds and their dynamics determine the properties of materials and living matter. These can be studied very precisely with short pulses of terahertz radiation. “With FLUTE, we can produce high-intensity and ultra-short electromagnetic pulses, thus meeting the needs of users from science, industry, and medicine,” says Dr. Erik Bründermann, IBPT scientist and a specialist in applications in the terahertz frequency range ... read full article (German/English).

Article from S. WIEBE / photos: M. BREIG / translation: M. SCHRÖDER
lookKIT issue #01/2018, pp. 48-51