Short pulse facility for MAX-lab

Several phenomena in physics and chemistry (such as phase-transitions, chemical reactions and structural changes in biomolecules) are driven on timescales in the fs range. To probe these phenomena short photon pulses of sufficiently short wavelength to directly probe the structure are necessary. The MAX IV proposal includes a short-pulse facility (SPF) which will be able to give these pulses.In this article we give an overview of short pulse sources. We introduce the science in the scope for the MAX IV SPF. We also describe the MAX IV SPF and give a glimpse of the MAX IV project as a whole.