📋 Tender Overview
Contract awarded for advanced Kirkpatrick-Baez optics The University of Hamburg (hereinafter "UHH") is one of the strongest research universities in Germany and one of the largest educational institutions in Northern Germany, with more than 43,000 students and about 6,000 employees, recognized as an excellence university. With its concept of a "flagship university" in the metropolitan region of Hamburg, it maintains innovative and cooperative connections with scientific and non-scientific partners. It produces future-oriented societal goods such as education, knowledge, and the exchange of knowledge for the location – but also nationally and internationally – under the guiding principle of sustainability. The subject of the project is the procurement and integration of a nanofocusing advanced Kirkpatrick-Baez optics (AKBS) to expand the focusing modalities of the existing mid-imaging instrument at the European XFEL (Hamburg). Ultrashort experiments in the attosecond to femtosecond range are a dynamically developing research field with high international competitive intensity, in which only a few large research infrastructures worldwide are experimentally leading. Worldwide, leading large research institutions are specifically investing in corresponding infrastructure to realize time-resolved imaging and spectroscopy on nanometer and attosecond scales. The performance of the focusing optics used is one of the central limiting factors. The goal is to generate a highly stable nanofocus that enables experiments with the cut-off energy of the La gold line range. To allow for the timely integration of the focusing optics into the existing mid-vacuum chamber of the European XFEL without structural modifications, the total length of the nanofocusing optics is to be set at 900 mm. The required optical aperture of 700 µm is determined by the beam size of the European XFEL and represents the minimum requirement for loss-free beam acceptance. The AKBS provide the necessary combination of nanofocus, stability, and wavefront quality that is essential for experiments in the attosecond to femtosecond range. The AKBS will be operated in a vacuum to maximize focus quality and wavefront stability and to ensure contamination-free mirror surfaces, which is crucial for extreme precision in field pulses and ensures the longevity of the optics. Value of the result: Winner selection date : 09/02/2026 Date of conclusion of the contract :09/02/2026 Estimated value excluding VAT :.advanced Kirkpatrick-Baez optics
