The SwissFEL facility and its preliminary optics beamline layout

The planned XFEL at the Paul Scherrer Institut, the SwissFEL, is a fourth generation light source. Meanwhile the first hard X - ray FEL was taken into operation, the LCLS at Stanford, USA. Two further hard XFELs are in construction. One in Hamburg, Germany and the second at Spring - 8, Japan. Thanks to the beam properties of the XFEL, these new sources promise to bring novel insights and breakthroughs in many scientific disciplines. For engineers and designers new challenges arise in terms of material choice, damage thresholds and beam property conservation. The Swiss Light Source optics group is currently working on the beamline optics design of the SwissFEL beamlines. The preliminary optics design of the two undulator beamlines which serve six experiments is under preparation. In this article a preliminary layout of the hard X - ray Aramis undulator beamline is presented. Several beamline designs have been evaluated. Beam deflection and splitting via mirrors and diamonds is presented. The SwissFEL is planned to be operational in 2016.