By DPA
Hamburg : An underground machine which can deliver ultra-short flashes of X-ray light and peer into atoms is to be built in this north German city.
The XFEL, or X-ray Free-Electron Laser, will be built over the next six years in a tunnel system 3.4 kilometres long.
"Commissioning of the first six of 10 possible experimental stations will begin in 2013," said German Science Minister Annette Schava at the launch ceremony with ministers from France and Russia.
Like a camera, the machine should be able to take flash photos of the chemical reactions as they happen.
Germany is paying three quarters of the initial 850-million-euro price tag, with 11 other nations including China providing the rest.
XFEL will be built in Hamburg's DESY science park where existing machines in tunnels do particle-physics research, but may also be useful for industrial research on nano-materials which are measured in billionths of a metre.
Tenders for construction of the underground tunnel system are to be invited next, said Andreas Schwarz, a DESY physicist. A pilot project was commissioned at DESY in 2005.
The tunnels will stretch under an inter-state border to the suburban town of Schenefeld in Schleswig-Holstein state.