SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
Electron beam accelerators used as drivers for short wavelength FELs need ultra-high brightness beams with small emittances and highly compressed bunch lengths. The acceleration and beam transport process of such beams leads to micro-bunching instabilities which cause the emergence of coherent optical transition radiation (COTR). The effect of COTR on profile monitors based on OTR or fluorescent screens can be quite detrimental to their intended use to measure beam sizes and profiles. This presentation will review past observations of the beam diagnostics issues due to COTR and discuss various mitigation schemes for profile monitors as well as present experience with such implementations.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
Ultraviolet drive laser and copper photocathode are the key systems for reliably delivering <0.4 micron of emittance and high brightness free electron laser (FEL) at the linac coherent light source (LCLS). Characterizing, optimizing and controlling laser distributions in both spatial and temporal directions are important for ultra-low emittance generation. Spatial truncated Gaussian laser profile has been demonstrated to produce better emittance than a spatial uniform beam. Sensitivity of the spatial laser distribution for the emittance is measured and analysed. Stacking two 2-ps Gaussian laser beams significantly improves emittance and eventually FEL performance at the LCLS in comparison to a single 2-ps Gaussian laser pulse. In addition, recent observations at the LCLS show that the micro-bunching effect depends strongly on the cathode spot locations. The dependence of the micro-bunching and FEL performance on the cathode spot location is mapped and discussed.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) was designed for a photon energies of 830 eV to 8.3 keV. This range was widened and up to 11.2 keV photons were already delivered for users. The Selenium K-edge at 12.6578 keV is very interesting since Selenium can replace Sulfur in biological structures and then that structure could be precisely measured. To reach this the electron energy would need to be raised by about 6% which initially didn't seem possible. The trick is to change the final compression scheme from a high correlated energy spread and moderate R56 in the compression chicane to moderate energy spread and high R56. The same bunch length can be achieved and RF energy is freed up, so the overall beam energy can be raised. Photons up to an energy of 12.82 keV (1.3% above the K-edge) with a pulse intensity of 0.93 mJ were achieved. The photon energy spread with this setup is wider at around 40-50 eV FWHM, since less correlated energy spread is left after the compression.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) delivers typically one bunch. Two bunches are interesting for pump / probe experiments. Two electron bunches with ps separation have been already produced using a split and delay in the laser which produces them on the gun cathode. Here we present the combination of two lasers with a combiner, this allows any time separation and is it limited to RF bucket spacing so far to about 40 ns limited by the setup of our beam containment system. Different beam energies were also provided and the most challenging part was a transverse separation of a few σs for the two beams. Although this setup was very jittery a successful user experiment was accomplished.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
Simulations show various impacts on x-ray divergence. With the motivation to maximize intensity at the focus, these beam studies were designed to study parameter space and beam qualities impacting divergence, and therefore aperture related clipping and diffraction. With multiple simultaneous users, beam constraints increase, requiring an improving knowledge of the mechanism of impact of changing parameters. These studies have that goal in order to improve beam control.
