Experiments at FLASH

FLASH, the free electron laser at DESY in Hamburg, is the first facility of its kind providing intense, femtosecond radiation pulses in the vacuum ultraviolet and soft X-ray range for user experiments. A broad science program has been started in summer 2005 with applications in atomic and molecular physics, cluster physics, the study of warm dense matter and surface dynamics, and diffraction imaging of small structures and biological samples with nanometer resolution. A selection of first experimental results is highlighted in this paper. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.