SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray FEL has been operational since 2009 and is delivering soft and hard x-rays to users now in the 4th user run. Reliable operation to deliver x-rays to users, quick machine turn on after shutdowns, and fast configuration changes for the wide range of user requests are particularly important for a facility serving a single user at a time. This talk will discuss procedures to set-up and optimize the accelerator and FEL x-ray beam for user operation. The emphasis will be on the most relevant diagnostics and tuning elements as well as the experience with feedback systems and high level support software to automate FEL operation.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
We report on measurements of broadband, intense, coherent transition radiation at terahertz frequencies, generated as the highly compressed electron bunches in LCLS pass through a thin metal foil. The foil is inserted at 45 degrees to the electron beam, 30 m downstream of the undulator. The THz emission passes downward through a diamond window to an optical table below the beamline. A fully compressed 350-pC bunch produces over 0.5 mJ in a nearly half-cycle pulse of 50 fs FWHM with a spectrum peaking at 10 THz. We estimate a peak field at the focus of over 2.5 GV/m. Electro-optic measurements using a newly installed 20-fs Ti:sapphire oscillator will be presented. We will discuss plans to add a THz pump and x-ray probe setup, in which a thin silicon crystal diffracts FEL light onto the table with adjustable time delay from the THz. This will provide a rapid start to user studies of materials excited by intense single-cycle pulses and will serve as a step toward a THz transport line for LCLS-II.
DESY, Hamburg, Germany
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
Control and knowledge of the spectrum of FEL X-ray radiation at the LCLS is important to the quality and interpretation of experimental results. Narrow bandwidth is useful in experiments requiring high-brightness beams. Wide bandwidth is particularly useful for photon energy calibration using absorption spectra. Since LCLS was commissioned in 2009 measurements have been made of average and single shot spectra of X-ray FEL radiation at the LCLS over a range of 800 to 8000 eV, for fundamental and harmonic radiation. These include correlations with chirp, bunch current, undulator K-taper, electron beam energy, and charge as well as some specialized machine configurations. In this paper we present results and discuss the relationship of the electron beam energy distribution to the observed X-ray spectrum.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
Understanding and controlling the transverse size and distribution of FEL X-ray radiation of the LCLS at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is discussed. Understanding divergence, source size, and distributions under various conditions is a convolution of many effects such as the electron distribution, the undulator alignment, micro-bunching suppression, and beta-match. Measurements of transverse size along the X-ray pulse and other studies designed to sort out the dominant effects are presented and discussed.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
The FEL of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC is generated in a 132 m long undulator. By introducing a kink in the undulator setup and launching different electron pulses with a small kick, we achieved two FEL beams with a separation of about 10 σ. These beams were separated at down stream mirrors and brought to the entrances of the soft and hard X-ray hutches. This was done at low energy creating soft X-rays which require only a shorter length to get to saturation. At high energy the whole undulator has to be "re-pointed" pulse by pulse. This can be done using 33 undulator correctors creating two straight lines for the photons with small angle to point the FEL to different mirrors pulse by pulse even at high energy. Experiments will be presented and further ideas discussed to get different energy photons created and sent to the soft and hard X-ray mirrors and experiments.