Association of complementary X-ray and optical spectroscopy methods and communities

Access to high-energy sources and ultrafast techniques at user facilities is highly demanded. Experimental stations are overscheduled. Very few user facilities are available in the Eastern Europe and Visegrad region, e.g. Solaris in Krakow, Poland. ELI Beamlines (ELI BL) aims at offering most progressive instruments satisfying the requirement for experimental time. As V4 countries require accessibility to advanced scientific tools, coordination of efforts on development of end stations at ELI BL is an outstanding opportunity to increase regional scientific infrastructure level. At most of high-energy facilities, X-ray and optical spectroscopy end stations are situated in relatively distant locations due to different beamline constructions that tune radiation to optical or X-ray energy region. The unique feature of ELI BL is location of X-ray (available energy up to ~10 keV, pulse lengths in ps range, and development to higher energies is ongoing) and optical spectroscopy (available energy window of 4.6 eV down to 0.5 eV, pulse length in the fs range) stations in close vicinity neighboring to each other, and relevant beamline scientists belong to one group. This makes possible to perform complementary studies that require use of both techniques. Typically, X-ray and optical spectroscopy communities have separate meetings and conferences. In order to achieve the highest output and performance, within the Visegrad project we aim at consolidation of leading V4 scientists from both fields to contribute to development of ELI end stations and trigger new scientific ideas by combining expertise into a joint effort.