The main presentations of the DESY Photon Science Users' Meeting 2023 took place in the DESY auditorium. (Credit: DESY, Marta Mayer)
“Finally meeting in-person again!” This was one of the catchphrases on the DESY campus at this year’s meeting of scientists conducting research at the European XFEL or the DESY light sources FLASH and PETRA III. After the meetings in the last two years took place in a purely virtual form due to the COVID pandemic, the Users' Meeting 2023 was a “real” one again on the campus. For almost a week (23-27 January) more than 1100 researchers from over 25 countries exchanged views on the status and future of research at the Hamburg-area light sources during presentations, in 20 workshops and satellite meetings, at an industrial exhibition and in poster exhibitions and especially in many personal discussions.
In addition to presenting the research highlights from the most recent user runs, the attendees also discussed new experimental and analysis methods and future challenges such as dealing with the huge amounts of data generated by current and future synchrotron radiation and FEL experiments.
The updates on the future projects FLASH2020+ and PETRA IV met with particular interest. The staggered FLASH2020+ expansion to further improve the research potential of the free-electron laser FLASH is already underway. For DESY´s planned future project PETRA IV, plans for the beamline portfolio, future access to measurement time and the integration of industrial measurements were presented at the Users' Meeting.
As was during the pandemic, participants could also attend the main lectures of the joint meeting in webinars. The two poster and industry exhibitions, which comprised more than 300 posters and 46 participating companies, on the other hand, relied on personal communication: They could only be visited live on campus.
The Photon Science Report 2022 published for the user meeting can now be downloaded.
