A complete x-ray free-electron-laser light source: a photoinjector makes electrons, an accelerator takes them to GeV energies, a chicane conditions the bunch, an undulator lases, and a plasma lens focuses the light onto the reticle. Three rival accelerators can power it — plasma wakefield stages driven by a petawatt CPA laser (tiny and violent), a kilometre-scale superconducting energy-recovery linac (huge and calm), or an SSMB storage ring that recycles the beam itself (round and patient). The 10-stop guided tour retells the story for whichever machine you pick, and you can switch anytime — here, with the switch up top, at the final tour stop, or by linking to #erl / #ring.
Each tour step plays out, then waits for you — hit "continue" when you've read it (or scrub the timeline / jump between stops anytime; "scroll mode" steps with the mouse wheel instead). Drag to rotate, shift-drag to pan, scroll to zoom. Hover the graphs to highlight that spot in the scene, and reopen this intro anytime with the [?] up top.