Author: Lamb, T.
Paper Title Page
THP090 Femtosecond Timing Distribution for the European XFEL 945
 
  • C. Sydlo, M.K. Czwalinna, M. Felber, C. Gerth, T. Lamb, H. Schlarb, S. Schulz, F. Zummack
    DESY, Hamburg, Germany
  • S. Jabłoński
    Warsaw University of Technology, Institute of Electronic Systems, Warsaw, Poland
  
  Ac­cu­rate tim­ing syn­chro­niza­tion on the fem­tosec­ond timescale is an es­sen­tial in­stal­la­tion for time-re­solved ex­per­i­ments at free-elec­tron lasers (FELs) such as FLASH and the up­com­ing Eu­ro­pean XFEL. To date the re­quired pre­ci­sion lev­els can only be achieved by a laser-based syn­chro­niza­tion sys­tem. Such a sys­tem has been suc­cess­fully de­ployed at FLASH and is based on the dis­tri­b­u­tion of fem­tosec­ond laser pulses over ac­tively sta­bi­lized op­ti­cal fibers. Al­beit its ma­tu­rity and proven per­for­mance this sys­tem had to un­dergo a major re­design for the up­com­ing Eu­ro­pean XFEL due to the en­larged num­ber of sta­bi­lized op­ti­cal fibers and an in­crease by a fac­tor of up to 10 in length. The ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge gath­ered from the op­er­a­tion of the op­ti­cal syn­chro­niza­tion sys­tem at FLASH has led to an elab­o­rate and mod­u­lar pre­ci­sion in­stru­ment which can sta­bi­lize po­lar­iza­tion main­tain­ing fibers for high­est ac­cu­racy as well as eco­nomic sin­gle mode fibers for shorter lengths. This paper re­ports on the laser-based syn­chro­niza­tion sys­tem fo­cus­ing on the ac­tive fiber sta­bi­liza­tion units for the Eu­ro­pean XFEL, dis­cusses major com­pli­ca­tions, their so­lu­tions and and the most re­cent per­for­mance re­sults.