Stanford University has an X-FEL (X-ray free electron laser) with a price tag of hundreds of millions. It provides images of “molecules in action,” using a kilometer-long electron accelerator. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology have developed an alternative that can do many of the same things. However, this alternative fits on a tabletop, and costs around half a million euros. The researchers have jokingly called it “the poor man’s X-FEL.”