SLAC, Menlo Park, California
UW-Madison/SRC, Madison, Wisconsin
FEL/Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
DEEI, Trieste
A single-pass high-gain x-ray free electron laser (FEL) calls for a high quality electron bunch. In particular, for a seeded FEL amplifier and for a harmonic generation FEL, the electron bunch initial energy profile uniformity and peak current uniformity are crucial for generating an FEL with a narrow bandwidth. After the acceleration, compression, and transportation, the electron bunch energy profile entering the undulator can acquire temporal non-uniformity both in energy and local density. We study the effects of the electron bunch initial energy profile non-uniformity and local density variation on the FEL performance. Intrinsically, for a harmonic generation FEL, the harmonic generation starts with an electron bunch having energy modulation as well as density bunching at the previous stage FEL wavelength and its harmonics. Its effect on the harmonic generation FEL in the radiator is then studied.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
Frequency-chirped FELs are useful to generate a large photon bandwidth or a shorter x-ray pulse duration. In this paper, we present a three-dimensional analysis of a high-gain FEL driven by the energy-chirped electron beam. We show that the FEL eigenmode equation is the same for a frequency-chirped FEL as for an undulator-tapered FEL. We study the transverse effects of such FELs including mode properties and transverse coherence. Comparison with numerical simulations are also discussed.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
DESY, Hamburg
For a SASE-FEL, the FEL pulse energy fluctuates from shot to shot, because the lasing process starts up from shot noise. When operating in the exponential growth regime, the radiation exhibits the properties of completely chaotic polarized light. Hence, the probability distribution of the FEL pulse energy follows a gamma distribution. Based on the measurement of such a distribution function, one can calculate the average number of ‘degrees of freedom’ or ‘modes’ in the radiation pulse. Thus, one can measure the FEL pulse temporal duration. In this paper, we report experimental results at LCLS. Measurements are conducted for both nominal charge (250 pC) and low charge (20 pC) cases. For both cases, results are obtained for different undulator lengths and various electron peak current settings.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
The success of LCLS [1] generates strong motivation and solid technical basis to extend its capabilities. The upgrade will extend x-rays wavelength range down to 0.06 nm. A new soft x‐ray adjustable‐gap undulator line will produce FEL with wavelengths up to 6 nm. To allow full electron beam rate and independent electron beam parameters in each line, a new injector and pair of bunch compressors will be added to the second kilometer of SLAC linac. The electron from this linac part will bypass the LCLS accelerator into the soft x‐ray undulators which can provide two FEL pulses with variable delay and photon energy and may be configured for narrow bandwidth pulse via self‐seeding. External seeding with the echo‐enabled harmonic generation can improve temporal coherence. The new bypass line can add multiple electron bunches within each RF pulse. LCLS‐II will provide polarization control and can incorporate the low‐charge, few‐femtosecond pulse duration operating mode. A THz radiation source will be included to provide x‐ray/THz pump‐probe capabilities. The schemes and parameters are based on measurements and experience at LCLS.
1. P. Emma et al., Nature Photonics (accepted, 2010).
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
USTC/NSRL, Hefei, Anhui
Lots of applications with mm wave need very high power (from tens of kW to MW), such as surface processing of metals and ceramics, heating magnetically confined plasma in thermonuclear fusion reactors, isotope separation and so on. Recently developed gyrotrons can provide up to 1 MW CW mm-wave source, however there are a number of limitations, needs of supper conducting magnet, cathode lifetime degradation because of very high current, almost approaching the upper limit of their power and frequency capabilities, and so on. It is thought that the electrostatic accelerator FEL (EA-FEL) will be a promising high power IR-mm source, because of its high average power generation, high-energy conversion efficiency and high spectral purity. The property of an EA as a high quality e-beam source for a FEL is crucial for attaining high brightness spontaneous emission radiation. The unique features of EA-FELs make them naturally fitting for a variety of applications in the present and in the near future. And few high power mm-IR EA FEL facilities have been successfully built around world. Here an EA of 3 MeV with beam current of 2 A is studied for a high average power (kWs) mm-THz source
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
Success of the world's first x-ray (0.15-1.5 nm) free electron laser (FEL) - LCLS - at SLAC opens the gate for new science. In this paper, we study the FEL performance for a two-stage self-seeding scheme by introducing a photon monochromator and an electron by-pass in the undulator system. The FEL generated in the first part of the undulator system is purified in spectrum, recombines with the electron bunch, and is amplified in the second part of the undulator system to saturation. Such modifications will improve the FEL longitudinal coherence, reducing the FEL band-width by two-orders of magnitude, but with similar peak power; hence improving the peak brightness by two-orders of magnitude. Such a self-seeding scheme is studied for both soft x-ray (200 eV to 2 keV) and hard x-ray (800 eV to 8 keV) cases with single electron bunch. The photon monochromator system is configurated as variable line spacing gratings for soft x-ray and single crystal for hard x-ray. Harmonic Generation and Chirped FEL are also considered aiming at reaching even shorter wavelength x-ray photons and at generating FEL pulse with even shorter temporal duration, respectively.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
LBNL, Berkeley, California
A complete optical system including grating monochromator and mirrors was designed to provide self-seeding of the soft X-ray undulators to be possibly built as part of the LCLS-II project. The grating monochromator consisted of a cylindrical horizontally focusing mirror, a plane vertically deflecting pre-mirror, a variable-line-spacing plane vertically deflecting grating, a horizontal exit slits, and a spherical vertically collimating mirror. The grating monochromator was designed to operate in the fixed-focus mode and tuning of the energy was designed to be achieved by rotations of only the pre-mirror and the grating. Only one ruling of 2200 l/mm was needed to cover the energy range from 200 to 2000 eV with an almost constant resolving power of greater than 22700. The monochromator would produce fully transform-limited pulses of 12 fs (rms) long at 2000 eV or 120 fs (rms) long at 200 eV with sufficient power to allow seeding. The optical system produced a slightly energy-dependent time delay of about 10 ps. The transverse size of the input beam was preserved in the horizontal direction, but was reduced in the vertical direction depending on the tuning energy.
LBNL, Berkeley, California
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
In this paper, we propose a scheme to generate atto-second to femto-second tunable water window (~2-4 nm) coherent X-ray radiation for future light source applications. This scheme improves the previously proposed modulation compression method [1] by using a 10 pC, 100 μm electron beam at 2 GeV energy, a 200 nm seeding laser, an X-band linac, two opposite sign bunch compressors, and a long wavelength laser to generate a prebunched, kilo-Amper current beam with a modulation wavelength within the water window. Such a beam will be sent into an undulator to generate a short pulse transverse and temporal coherent soft X-ray radiation. The requirement of initial seeding laser power is small. The electron beam at the entrance of undulator can have sub micron normalized emittance.
[1] J. Qiang, "Short wavelength seeding through compression for free electron lasers," NIM-A,10.{10}16/j.nima.2010.04.053, 2010.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
LLNL, Livermore, California
The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) is a Free Electron Laser (FEL) operating with a fundamental wavelength ranging from 1.5-0.15 nm. Characterization of the higher harmonics present in the beam is important to users, for whom harder X-rays can either extend the useful operating wavelength range or represent a background to measurements. We present here measurements of the power in both the second and third harmonics.
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
Success in commissioning the world's first x-ray (0.15-1.5 nm) free electron laser (FEL) - the LINAC Coherent Light Source (LCLS) - at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory opens the gate for new science. Further improving the FEL spectrum bandwidth, shortening the FEL pulse temporal duration, and generating even higher energy x-ray photons are urged by various potential users. In this paper, we study the possibility of generating femtosecond duration X-ray pulses with a variable photon energy from 1.5 to 48 keV, using an electron beam with the same characteristics of the LCLS beam, and a planar undulator with additional focusing. We assume that the beam energy can be changed, and the undulator has a variable gap, allowing the undulator parameter to be changed from zero to a maximum value. It is assumed to be operated in an ultra-low charge and ultra-short pulse regime.
UW-Madison/SRC, Madison, Wisconsin
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
Bunch compression for a free-electron laser (FEL) may cause growth of current and energy fluctuations at wavelengths shorter than the bunch length. This microbunching instability may disrupt FEL performance or it may be used to produce coherent radiation. We give analytic formulas that approximate microbunching growth and apply them to the Wisconsin FEL (WiFEL).
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
The Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC is a hard X-ray FEL which was designed for single electron bunch operation. Although most user experiments are not interested in multiple bunches from an S-band linac due to their short (ns) separation, there are some advantages with multi-bunch operation. Starting with two bunches where the delayed light of one bunch is used to seed the light of a second bunch, to many more bunches to increase the likelihood of rare target collisions, multi-bunch operation would open more options for the LCLS. In the past the SLAC Linac has operated with a few dedicated bunches for the SLC (Stanford Linear Collider), and up to 1400 bunches for some fixed target experiments, so a few bunches for the LCLS seems possible even with the original single bunch design. This paper will describe how the current RF implementation supports multi-bunch operation. Initial experimental tests with two bunches are presented.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
During undulator commissioning of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) x-ray Free Electron Laser (FEL) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory it was shown that saturation lengths much shorter than the installed length of the undulator line can routinely be achieved. This frees undulator segments that can be used to provide enhanced spectral properties and at the same time, test the concept of FEL Afterburners. In December 2009 a project was initiated to convert undulator segments at the down-beam end of the undulator line into Second Harmonic Afterburners (SHAB) to enhance LCLS radiation levels in the 10 20 keV energy range. This is being accomplished by replacement of gap-shims increasing the fixed gaps from 6.8 mm to 9.9 mm, which reduces their K values from 3.50 to 2.25 and makes the segments resonant at the second harmonic of the upstream unmodified undulators. The paper reports experimental results of the commissioning of the SHAB extension to LCLS.