Efficiency enhancement of a two-beam free-electron laser using a nonlinearly tapered wiggler

A nonlinear and non-averaged model of a two-beam free-electron laser (FEL) wiggler that is tapered nonlinearly in the absence of slippage is presented. The two beams are assumed to have different energies, and the fundamental resonance of the higher energy beam is at the third harmonic of the lower energy beam. By using Maxwell's equations and the full Lorentz force equation of motion for the electron beams, coupled differential equations are derived and solved numerically by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. The amplitude of the wiggler field is assumed to decrease nonlinearly when the saturation of the third harmonic occurs. By simulation, the optimum starting point of the tapering and the slopes for reducing the wiggler amplitude are found. This technique can be applied to substantially improve the efficiency of the two-beam FEL in the XUV and X-ray regions. The effect of tapering on the dynamical stability of the fast electron beam is also studied.     

Efficiency enhancement of a two-beam free-electron laser using a nonlinearly tapered wiggler

A nonlinear and non-averaged model of a two-beam free-electron laser(FEL) wiggler that is tapered nonlinearly in the absence of slippage is presented.The two beams are assumed to have different energies,and the fundamental resonance of the higher energy beam is at the third harmonic of the lower energy beam.By using Maxwell’s equations and the full Lorentz force equation of motion for the electron beams,coupled differential equations are derived and solved numerically by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method.The amplitude of the wiggler field is assumed to decrease nonlinearly when the saturation of the third harmonic occurs.By simulation,the optimum starting point of the tapering and the slopes for reducing the wiggler amplitude are found.This technique can be applied to substantially improve the efficiency of the two-beam FEL in the XUV and X-ray regions.The effect of tapering on the dynamical stability of the fast electron beam is also studied.     

Plasma-aided radiation guiding in a free-electron laser

The introduction of a plasma in a free-electron laser (FEL) helps radiation guiding via nonlinear refraction. At high-radiation power density, when oscillatory electron velocity is comparable to the electron thermal velocity, the radiation pushes plasma radially out, forming a depleted plasma duct and guiding the radiation. The radius of the self-trapped laser is ~c/ω_po, where ω_po is the unperturbed plasma frequency and c is the velocity of light in vacuum     

Diffractive optical elements and quasioptical schemes for experiments on a high-power terahertz free-electron laser

We have developed reflective diffraction optical elements (DOE) for focusing monochromatic coherent radiation of 400 W terahertz Novosibirsk free-electron laser (FEL). Operational characteristics of two modifications of the refractive kinoform lenses were studied. Quasioptical Toepler system with terahertz radiation recording by a thermosensitive luminescent screen was fabricated for the examination of film and solid deformation. A system for real-time terahertz radioscopy of objects with image recording with a microbolometer matrix (MBM) was fabricated. Images of objects illuminated with a plane wave or diffuse radiation were studied with the MBM. It was shown that the speckle pattern, which appears in the second case, can be averaged by means of the scatterer rotation.     

Radiation guiding in a plasma wave wiggler free-electron laser

The radiation guiding of a plasma wave wiggler free-electron laser (FEL) in the Compton regime was examined. It was found that a Langmuir wave supported by a plasma cylinder acts as a wiggler for the generation of high-frequency coherent radiation when an annular relativistic electron beam passes through it. The radiation mode in the Compton regime tends to be localized close to the radius of the beam. A normal-mode analysis of this process revealed that the growth rate of the instability increases as the square root of the beam current. The treatment presented is restricted to the case where the radial width of the FEL radiation mode is larger than the beam radius, but smaller than the waveguide radius     

Continuously tunable, high-power, single-mode radiation from a short-pulse free-electron laser

This paper gives the first demonstration of high-power, continuously tunable, narrowband radiation that is produced by means of a free-electron laser (FEL) in the far-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. A Fox-Smith intracavity étalon was used to induce phase coherence between the 40 optical micropulses that were circulating in the laser cavity. The corresponding phase-locked spectrum consisted of a comb of discrete frequencies separated by 1 GHz. A pair of external Fabry-Pérot étalons was used to filter out a single line from this spectrum. The power in the selected narrow line at 69 microm wavelength was equal to 250 mW during the macropulse of the laser. The spectral width of the selected line is as small as that of a single cavity mode, i.e., a fraction of 25 MHz, in single macropulses of the laser. The average bandwidth of 25 MHz is determined by mode hopping of the phase-locked FEL. The selected frequency hops over 25 MHz between the extrema of this band. The influence of partially coherent spontaneous emission and mode hopping on the final linewidth was studied. The narrow-linewidth radiation was scanned in frequency over 1 GHz. We show that the possibilities to scan over smaller or larger frequency intervals are unlimited.     

The effects of the guide field and tapered wiggler in free-electron laser

The interaction between electromagnetic field and electron beam was investigated numerically in a free-electron laser, using a new simulation code which consist of the three-dimensional electron motion, amplitude and phase of emitted radiation. The maintenance of the quality and stability of electron beam and the resonance condition through the wiggler is important to obtain the high gain and the high efficiency. But the electron orbits diverge and become unstable, and the resonance condition is not preserved because of the three-dimensional effects on the off-axis electron and the conversion of electron energy to electromagnetic field. To prevent those defects and improve the efficiency compared with the conventional case, we used the new methods such as the axial-guide field and tapered wiggler.     

Off-axis gain enhancement in a free-electron laser in the long undulator regime

The small-signal gain of a free-electron laser with a linearly polarized undulator is investigated for the case where the electron emits at a slight angle with respect to its direction of propagation. In the long cavity (warm beam) regime the gain off axis if compared for constant frequency can be higher than the gain axis by about order of magnitude.     

氧碘化学激光中的增益光导效应

 发现和分析了氧碘化学激光中的增益光导效应。碘注入的不均匀等导致增益在该方向的不均匀。采用预混模型和Fabry Perot腔模型，推导了碘不均匀分布情况下的单重态氧的产额和激光束横向分布的解析表达式。计算结果表明，由于增益光导效应，引起激光横向分布的变化，可导致光束在碘注入方向的倾斜，以及输出功率的下降。     

Efficiency enhancement in free-electron lasers by means of concurrent rf acceleration

Efficiency enhancement in free-electron lasers (FELs) using rf beam acceleration in the wiggler is described. Since the beam tube is a waveguide, there are low and high frequency resonances. Injection of low frequency power can act as an inverse-FEL accelerator concurrently with high frequency power extraction. Simulation of a FEL using this technique shows that substantial efficiency enhancements are possible without significant increases in the beam energy spread, which facilitates the use of energy recovery schemes. The technique is applicable to amplifier and oscillator configurations.     

氧碘化学激光中的增益光导效应

发现和分析了氧碘化学激光中的增益光导效应。碘注入的不均匀等导致增益在该方向的不均匀。采用预混模型和Fabry Perot腔模型,推导了碘不均匀分布情况下的单重态氧的产额和激光束横向分布的解析表达式。计算结果表明,由于增益光导效应,引起激光横向分布的变化,可导致光束在碘注入方向的倾斜,以及输出功率的下降。     

Spatially variable retardation plate for beam brightness enhancement in a high-power laser

We present a simple and robust method for brightness enhancement, efficiently transforming a radially polarized LG (0,1)(*) mode into a nearly Gaussian beam of much higher quality. We use for this a spatially variable retardation plate and a spatial filter. The analysis shows that the transformation yields an increase in brightness by a factor of 3.4. In the experiment, we transformed a high-power Nd:YAG radially polarized (0,1)(*) LG beam with power of 70 W and M(2)=2.6 into a nearly Gaussian beam with M(2)=1.36. This resulted in brightness enhancement by a factor of 2.6.     

Nonlinear processes in the optical medium of a high-power neodymium laser

The article is devoted to an analysis of the nonlinear processes that arise when powerful beams propagate in the optical medium of an Nd laser and influence its output parameters. A review is presented of the methods of theoretically describing the processes of temporal and spatial self-focusing, and experimental data are cited that illustrate the character of the course of the self-focusing in the generators and amplifiers of a high-power laser. Possible methods of suppressing self-focusing in a laser installation are considered.Translated from Trudy Ordena Lenina Fizicheskogo Instituta im. P. N. Lebedeva, Vol. 103, pp. 84–117, 1978.     

Characterization of a chaotic optical field using a high-gain, self-amplified free-electron laser

We report on a characterization of the chaotic optical field from a high-gain, self-amplified spontaneous-emission (SASE) free-electron laser. The temporal structure of the amplitude and phase are measured in a single-shot mode, with a resolution well below the coherence length, and the statistics over multiple pulses is determined. The measurement is in excellent quantitative agreement with the prediction based on analysis of random noise, and further verifies the chaotic nature of the SASE optical field.     

Amplification in a semibounded free-electron laser

A self-consistent analytic expression for the complex gain of a free-electron laser is obtained on the basis of the single-particle equations with realistic boundary conditions. The results are presented in the form of amplitude-frequency and phase-frequency characteristics of a free-electron laser.New-Accelerator Problems Laboratory, Lebedev Physics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Translated from Preprint No. 240 of the Lebedev Physics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1988.