The SwissFEL X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) facility started construction at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Villigen, Switzerland) in 2013 and will be ready to accept its first users in 2018 on the Aramis hard X-ray branch. In the following sections we will summarize the various aspects of the project, including the design of the soft and hard X-ray branches of the accelerator, the results of SwissFEL performance simulations, details of the photon beamlines and experimental stations, and our first commissioning results.

The SwissFEL soft X-ray free-electron laser (FEL) beamline Athos will be ready for user operation in 2021. Its design includes a novel layout of alternating magnetic chicanes and short undulator segments. Together with the APPLE X architecture of undulators, the Athos branch can be operated in different modes producing FEL beams with unique characteristics ranging from attosecond pulse length to high-power modes. Further space has been reserved for upgrades including modulators and an external seeding laser for better timing control. All of these schemes rely on state-of-the-art technologies described in this overview. The optical transport line distributing the FEL beam to the experimental stations was designed with the whole range of beam parameters in mind. Currently two experimental stations, one for condensed matter and quantum materials research and a second one for atomic, molecular and optical physics, chemical sciences and ultrafast single-particle imaging, are being laid out such that they can profit from the unique soft X-ray pulses produced in the Athos branch in an optimal way.

The existence of coherent quasiparticles near the Fermi energy in the low-temperature state of high-temperature superconductors has been well established by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). We present a study of ${\mathrm{La}}_{1.83}{\mathrm{Sr}}_{0.17}\mathrm{Cu}{\mathrm{O}}_4$ in the superconducting state and report an abrupt change in the quasiparticle spectral function, as we follow the dispersion of the ARPES signal from the Fermi energy to $0.6\mathrm{eV}$. The interruption in the quasiparticle dispersion separates coherent quasiparticle peaks at low energies from broad incoherent excitations at high energies. We find that the boundary between these low-energy and high-energy features exhibits a cosine-shaped momentum dependence, reminiscent of the superconducting $d$-wave gap. Further intriguing similarities between characteristics of the incoherent excitations and quasiparticle properties suggest a close relation between the electronic response at high and low energies in cuprate superconductors.

We report an angle-resolved photoemission study of the electronic structure of the pseudogap state in La_1.48Nd_0.4Sr_0.12CuO₄ (T_c<7 K). Two opposite dispersing Fermi arcs are the main result of this study. Several scenarios that can explain this observation are discussed.

The SwissFEL Aramis beamline, covering the photon energies between 1.77 keV and 12.7 keV, features a suite of online photon diagnostics tools to help both users and FEL operators in analysing data and optimizing experimental and beamline performance. Scientists will be able to obtain information about the flux, spectrum, position, pulse length, and arrival time jitter versus the experimental laser for every photon pulse, with further information about beam shape and size available through the use of destructive screens. This manuscript is an overview of the diagnostics tools available at SwissFEL and presents their design, working principles and capabilities. It also features new developments like the first implementation of a THz-streaking based temporal diagnostics for a hard X-ray FEL, capable of measuring pulse lengths to 5 fs r.m.s. or better.

We present an angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy study of YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ films in situ grown by pulsed laser deposition. We have successfully produced underdoped surfaces with ordered oxygen vacancies within the CuO chains resulting in a clear ortho-II band folding of the Fermi surface. This indicates that order within the CuO chains affects the electronic properties of the CuO${}_2$ planes. Our results highlight the importance of having not only the correct surface carrier concentration, but also a very well ordered and clean surface in order that photoemission data on this compound be representative of the bulk.