“The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in the United Kingdom will contribute to the European XFEL an optical laser that will generate conditions similar to the interior of Earth-like exoplanets. The £8 million (approximately 11 million euro) development and construction of the laser will be funded by STFC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, within a grant framework overseen by Professor Justin Wark at the University of Oxford.

The laser will be manufactured, assembled, and tested in the UK by CLF and will then be shipped for the final assembly in Germany. It is part of the contributions by the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields at the European XFEL (HIBEF) user consortium and will be installed at the High Energy Density Science (HED) instrument. The UK previously has provided funding for the Serial Femtosecond Crystallography (SFX) user consortium and has stated its intention to invest up to £30 million to become the European XFEL’s twelfth member state.”

For more information see: http://www.xfel.eu/news/2015/uk_contributes_a_high_energy
_optical_laser_to_hed_instrument/