• L. Giannessi, F. Ciocci, G. Dattoli, M. Del Franco, A. Petralia, M. Quattromini, C. Ronsivalle, E. Sabia, I.P. Spassovsky, V. Surrenti
  ENEA C.R. Frascati, Frascati (Roma)
• D. Alesini, M. Bellaveglia, M. Castellano, E. Chiadroni, L. Cultrera, G. Di Pirro, M. Ferrario, L. Ficcadenti, D. Filippetto, A. Gallo, G. Gatti, E. Pace, B. Spataro, C. Vaccarezza, C. Vicario
  INFN/LNF, Frascati (Roma)
• A. Bacci, V. Petrillo, A.R. Rossi, L. Serafini
  Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Milano
• M. Bougeard, B. Carré
  CEA, Gif-sur-Yvette
• F. Briquez, M.-E. Couprie, M. Labat
  SOLEIL, Gif-sur-Yvette
• A. Cianchi
  Università di Roma II Tor Vergata, Roma
• F. Frassetto, L. P. Poletto
  LUXOR, Padova
• G. Lambert
  LOA, Palaiseau
• G. Marcus, J.B. Rosenzweig
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California
• M. Moreno, M. Serluca
  INFN-Roma, Roma
• A. Mostacci
  Rome University La Sapienza, Roma
• J.V. Rau, V. Rossi Albertini
  ISM-CNR, Rome

SPARC is a single pass free electron laser test facility realized in collaboration between the main Italian research institutions and devoted to experiments of light amplification in different beam conditions. While the laser was commissioned in self amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) mode during the last year, the operation in seeded mode has been recently demonstrated. The amplifier has been seeded with the second harmonic of the Ti:Sa driver laser generated in a crystal and with higher order VUV harmonics generated in a gas cell. The comparison between seeded and unseeded FEL emission will be discussed. The laser has been also operated in a new SASE configuration with a strongly chirped longitudinal e-beam phase space resulting from the RF compression. The chirp has been compensated by accordingly tapering the undulator gaps. Spectra with and without taper have been collected. An increase of about a factor 5 of the pulse energy in combination with spectra with a single longitudinal coherence region have been detected in presence of the taper. The combination of the chirp with the input seed is under study.

• J.N. Corlett, K.M. Baptiste, J.M. Byrd, A.E. Charman, P. Denes, R.W. Falcone, J. Feng, D. Filippetto, C.M.R. Greaves, J. Kirz, D. Li, H.A. Padmore, C. F. Papadopoulos, G.C. Pappas, G. Penn, J. Qiang, M.W. Reinsch, R.D. Ryne, F. Sannibale, R.W. Schoenlein, J.W. Staples, C. Steier, T. Vecchione, M. Venturini, W. Wan, R.P. Wells, R.B. Wilcox, J.S. Wurtele
  LBNL, Berkeley, California
• E. Kur
  UCB, Berkeley, California
• A. Zholents
  ANL, Argonne

The Next Generation Light Source (NGLS) is a design concept, under development at LBNL, for a 10‐beamline soft x‐ray FEL array powered by a 2.4 GeV superconducting linear accelerator, operating with a 1 MHz bunch repetition rate. The CW superconducting linear accelerator is supplied by a high-brightness, high-repetition-rate photocathode electron gun. Beam is distributed from the linac to the array of independently configurable FEL beamlines with nominal bunch rates up to 100 kHz, with even pulse spacing. Individual FELs may be configured for EEHG, HGHG, SASE, or oscillator mode of operation, and will produce high peak and average brightness x-rays with a flexible pulse format ranging from sub-femtoseconds to hundreds of femtoseconds.

• F. Sannibale, B.J. Bailey, K.M. Baptiste, A.L. Catalano, D. Colomb, J.N. Corlett, S. De Santis, L.R. Doolittle, J. Feng, D. Filippetto, G. Huang, R. Kraft, D. Li, H.A. Padmore, C. F. Papadopoulos, G.J. Portmann, S. Prestemon, J. Qiang, J.W. Staples, M.E. Stuart, T. Vecchione, R.P. Wells, M.S. Zolotorev
  LBNL, Berkeley, California
• M. J. Messerly, M.A. Prantil
  LLNL, Livermore, California
• M. Yoon
  POSTECH, Pohang, Kyungbuk

The fabrication and installation at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of a high-brightness high-repetition rate photo-gun, based on a normal conducting 187 MHz (VHF) RF cavity operating in CW mode, is in its final phase. The cavity will generate an electric field at the cathode plane of ~20 MV/m to accelerate the electron bunches up to ~750 keV, with peak current, energy spread and transverse emittance suitable for FEL and ERL applications. The gun vacuum system has been designed for pressures compatible with high quantum efficiency but "delicate" semiconductor cathodes to generate up to a nC bunches at MHz repetition rate with present laser technology. Several photo-cathode/laser systems are under consideration, and in particular photo-cathodes based on K2CsSb are being developed and have already achieved a QE of 8% at 532 nm wavelength, or close to 20% including the Schottky barrier lowering. The cathode will be operated by a microjoule fiber laser in conjunction with refractive optics to create a flat top transverse profile, as well as a birefringent pulse stacker to create a flat top temporal profile. The present status and the plan for future activities are presented.

• C. F. Papadopoulos, J.N. Corlett, D. Filippetto, J. Qiang, F. Sannibale, J.W. Staples, M. Venturini, M.S. Zolotorev
  LBNL, Berkeley, California

The Advanced Photoinjector Experiment (APEX) is a part of the Next Generation Light Source (NGLS), a proposed soft x-ray FEL concept being studied at LBNL. The requirements for the beam delivered to the FELs pose restrictions on the beam parameters at the injector. In addition, different modes of operation of the machine may pose different requirements on the beam. In order to optimize the performance of the injector, a genetic multiobjective algorithm has been used. A genetic algorithm is used because of the inherent complexity of the beam dynamics at the energy range in question (0-30 MeV) and the large number of parameters available for optimization. On the other hand, the multiplicity of requirements on the beam, which include beam emittance, beam pulse length, energy chirp, as well as pulse shape and peak current, leads to a mutliobjective approach for the optimization technique. In this paper, we present the status of the optimization simulations, using the ASTRA particle-in-cell code. Different injector setups are presented and the resulting transport solutions are compared to each other and the requirements of the downstream sections of the accelerator.