Undulator beamline optimization with integrated chicanes for X‐ray free‐electron‐laser facilities

An optimization of the undulator layout of X‐ray free‐electron‐laser (FEL) facilities based on placing small chicanes between the undulator modules is presented. The installation of magnetic chicanes offers the following benefits with respect to state‐of‐the‐art FEL facilities: reduction of the required undulator length to achieve FEL saturation, improvement of the longitudinal coherence of the FEL pulses, and the ability to produce shorter FEL pulses with higher power levels. Numerical simulations performed for the soft X‐ray beamline of the SwissFEL facility show that optimizing the advantages of the layout requires shorter undulator modules than the standard ones. This proposal allows a very compact undulator beamline that produces fully coherent FEL pulses and it makes possible new kinds of experiments that require very short and high‐power FEL pulses.     

Spectrometer for hard X‐ray free‐electron laser based on diffraction focusing

X‐ray free‐electron lasers (XFELs) generate sequences of ultra‐short spatially coherent pulses of X‐ray radiation. A diffraction focusing spectrometer (DFS), which is able to measure the whole energy spectrum of the radiation of a single XFEL pulse with an energy resolution of ΔE/E? 2 × 10^?6, is proposed. This is much better than for most modern X‐ray spectrometers. Such resolution allows one to resolve the fine spectral structure of the XFEL pulse. The effect of diffraction focusing occurs in a single‐crystal plate due to dynamical scattering, and is similar to focusing in a Pendry lens made from a metamaterial with a negative refraction index. Such a spectrometer is easier to operate than those based on bent crystals. It is shown that the DFS can be used in a wide energy range from 5 keV to 20 keV.     

Modeling of terahertz radiation emission from a free‐electron laser

In this article, we report the generation of terahertz (THz) radiation using the interaction of a laser‐modulated relativistic electron beam (REB) with a surface plasma wave. Two laser beams propagating through the modulator interact with the REB, leading to velocity modulation of the beam. This results in pre‐bunching of the REB. The pre‐bunched beam travels through the drift space, where the velocity modulation translates into density modulation. The density‐modulated beam, on interacting with the surface plasma pump wave, acquires an oscillatory velocity that couples with the modulated beam density to give rise to a nonlinear current density which acts as an antenna to give THz radiation. By optimizing the parameters of the beam and the wiggler, we obtain power of the order of 10⁻⁴ using the current scheme.     

On‐chip THz spectrometer for bunch compression fingerprinting at fourth‐generation light sources

The layout of an integrated millimetre‐scale on‐chip THz spectrometer is presented and its peformance demonstrated. The device is based on eight Schottky‐diode detectors which are combined with narrowband THz antennas, thereby enabling the simultaneous detection of eight frequencies in the THz range on one chip. The size of the active detector area matches the focal spot size of superradiant THz radiation utilized in bunch compression monitors of modern linear electron accelerators. The 3 dB bandwidth of the on‐chip Schottky‐diode detectors is less than 10% of the center frequency and allows pulse‐resolved detection at up to 5 GHz repetition rates. The performance of a first prototype device is demonstrated at a repetition rate of 100 kHz at the quasi‐cw SRF linear accelerator ELBE operated with electron bunch charges between a few pC and 100 pC.     

Two‐color operation of a free‐electron laser with a tilted beam

With the successful operation of free‐electron lasers (FELs) as user facilities there has been a growing demand for experiments with two photon pulses with variable photon energy and time separation. A configuration of an undulator with variable‐gap control and a delaying chicane in the middle of the beamline is proposed. An injected electron beam with a transverse tilt will only yield FEL radiation for the parts which are close to the undulator axis. This allows, after re‐aligning and delaying the electron beam, a different part of the bunch to be used to produce a second FEL pulse. This method offers independent control in photon energy and delay. For the parameters of the soft X‐ray beamline Athos at the SwissFEL facility the photon energy tuning range is a factor of five with an adjustable delay between the two pulses from ?50 to 950 fs.     

Time–space transformation of femtosecond free‐electron laser pulses by periodical multilayers

A scattering scheme to probe the time evolution of femtosecond pulses of a soft X‐ray free‐electron laser (FEL) in a multilayer structure is presented. The response of periodic multilayers (MLs) with low and high absorption and various numbers of bi‐layers to a pulse train of Gaussian‐shaped sub‐pulses is calculated. During the passage of the incident pulse the interaction length increases and the scattering profile changes as a function of the spatial position of the pulse within the sample. Owing to stretching of the reflected pulse compared with the incident pulse, the time‐dependent scattering evolution in the ML can be visualized along a spatial coordinate of a position‐sensitive detector. Using a scattering geometry where the mean energy of the incident pulse train is slightly detuned from the energy of maximum reflectivity at the first‐order peak, the response of the ML shows an oscillator behaviour along this spatial coordinate at the detector. For a FEL wavelength of 6.4 nm this effect is promising for MLs with low absorption, such as La/C for example. On the other hand, the oscillations will not be present for MLs with high absorption. Therefore a low‐absorbing ML is a sensitive tool for studying the possible change of sample absorption caused by femtosecond‐pulse interaction with matter.     

Interaction of a relativistic dense electron beam with a laser wiggler in a vacuum: self‐field effects on the electron orbits and free‐electron laser gain

Employing laser wigglers and accelerators provides the potential to dramatically cut the size and cost of X‐ray light sources. Owing to recent technological developments in the production of high‐brilliance electron beams and high‐power laser pulses, it is now conceivable to make steps toward the practical realisation of laser‐pumped X‐ray free‐electron lasers (FELs). In this regard, here the head‐on collision of a relativistic dense electron beam with a linearly polarized laser pulse as a wiggler is studied, in which the laser wiggler can be realised using a conventional quantum laser. In addition, an external guide magnetic field is employed to confine the electron beam against self‐fields, therefore improving the FEL operation. Conditions allowing such an operating regime are presented and its relevant validity checked using a set of general scaling formulae. Rigorous analytical solutions of the dynamic equations are provided. These solutions are verified by performing calculations using the derived solutions and well known Runge–Kutta procedure to simulate the electron trajectories. The effects of self‐fields on the FEL gain in this configuration are estimated. Numerical calculations indicate that in the presence of self‐fields the sensitivity of the gain increases in the vicinity of resonance regions. Besides, diamagnetic and paramagnetic effects of the wiggler‐induced self‐magnetic field cause gain decrement and enhancement for different electron orbits, while these diamagnetic and paramagnetic effects increase with increasing beam density. The results are compared with findings of planar magnetostatic wiggler FELs.     

Phase‐merging enhanced harmonic generation free‐electron laser with a normal modulator

A phase‐merging enhanced harmonic generation free‐electron laser (FEL) was proposed to increase the harmonic conversion efficiency of seeded FELs and promote the radiation wavelength towards the X‐ray spectral region. However, this requires a specially designed transverse gradient undulator (TGU) as the modulator to couple the transverse and longitudinal phase space of the electron beam. In this paper, the generation of the phase‐merging effect is explored using the natural field gradient of a normal planar undulator. In this method, a vertical dispersion on the electron beam is introduced and then the dispersed beam travels through a normal modulator in a vertical off‐axis orbit where the vertical field gradient is selected properly in terms of the vertical dispersion strength and modulation amplitude. The phase‐merging effect will be generated after passing through the dispersive chicane. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations for a seeded soft X‐ray FEL based on parameters of the Shanghai Soft X‐ray FEL project are presented. Compared with a TGU modulator, using the natural gradient of a normal planar modulator has the distinct advantage that the gradient can be conveniently tuned in quite a large range by adjusting the beam orbit offset.     

Ultra‐short and ultra‐intense X‐ray free‐electron laser single pulse in one‐dimensional photonic crystals

The propagation within a one‐dimensional photonic crystal of a single ultra‐short and ultra‐intense pulse delivered by an X‐ray free‐electron laser is analysed with the framework of the time‐dependent coupled‐wave theory in non‐linear media. It is shown that the reflection and the transmission of an ultra‐short pulse present a transient period conditioned by the extinction length and also the thickness of the structure for transmission. For ultra‐intense pulses, non‐linear effects are expected: they could give rise to numerous phenomena, bi‐stability, self‐induced transparency, gap solitons, switching, etc., which have been previously shown in the optical domain.     

Focusing femtosecond X‐ray free‐electron laser pulses by refractive lenses

The possibility of using a parabolic refractive lens with initial X‐ray free‐electron laser (XFEL) pulses, i.e. without a monochromator, is analysed. It is assumed that the measurement time is longer than 0.3 fs, which is the time duration of a coherent pulse (spike). In this case one has to calculate the propagation of a monochromatic wave and then perform an integration of the intensity over the radiation spectrum. Here a general algorithm for calculating the propagation of time‐dependent radiation in free space and through various objects is presented. Analytical formulae are derived describing the properties of the monochromatic beam focused by a system of one and two lenses. Computer simulations show that the European XFEL pulses can be focused with maximal efficiency, i.e. as for a monochromatic wave. This occurs even for nanofocusing lenses.     

Application of an ePix100 detector for coherent scattering using a hard X‐ray free‐electron laser

A prototype ePix100 detector was used in small‐angle scattering geometry to capture speckle patterns from a static sample using the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) hard X‐ray free‐electron laser at 8.34 keV. The average number of detected photons per pixel per pulse was varied over three orders of magnitude from about 23 down to 0.01 to test the detector performance. At high average photon count rates, the speckle contrast was evaluated by analyzing the probability distribution of the pixel counts at a constant scattering vector for single frames. For very low average photon counts of less than 0.2 per pixel, the `droplet algorithm' was first applied to the patterns for correcting the effect of charge sharing, and then the pixel count statistics of multiple frames were analyzed collectively to extract the speckle contrast. Results obtained using both methods agree within the uncertainty intervals, providing strong experimental evidence for the validity of the statistical analysis. More importantly it confirms the suitability of the ePix100 detector for X‐ray coherent scattering experiments, especially at very low count rates with performances surpassing those of previously available LCLS detectors.     

Pseudogap in the Eliashberg approach based on electron‐phonon and electron‐electron‐phonon interaction

The properties of the superconducting and the anomalous normal state were described by using the Eliashberg method. The pairing mechanism was reproduced with the help of the Hamiltonian, which models the electron‐phonon and the electron‐electron‐phonon interaction (EEPh). The set of the Eliashberg equations, which determines the order parameter function (φ), the wave function renormalization factor (Z), and the energy shift function (χ), was derived. It was proven that for the sufficiently large values of the EEPh potential, the doping dependence of the order parameter () has the analogous course to that observed experimentally in cuprates. The energy gap in the electron density of states is induced by Z and χ ‐ the contribution from φ is negligible. The electron density of states possesses the characteristic asymmetric form and the pseudogap is observed above the critical temperature.

     

小型掠入射式近边X射线吸收谱仪的设计

近边X射线吸收精细结构(NEXAFS)谱包含了吸收原子的局域结构信息,由于其适用范围广,灵敏度高,已经成为研究物质结构的重要手段之一。为了研究有机物的碳1s NEXAFS谱,本文基于气体激光等离子体X射线光源,采用具有平场特性的凹面变线距光栅作为分光元件,面阵CCD作为光谱探测器,设计了一台小型掠入射式近边X射线吸收谱仪。通过优化光栅和CCD的装配方案,得到了入射角88.6°的装配参数。利用光线追迹法分析了谱仪的分辨率,该谱仪工作波段2~5 nm,在4.4 nm处分辨率可达666。通过分析各结构参量误差对谱线半高宽的影响发现,半高宽对入射角的误差最为敏感,优化的装配方案可以实现入射角的高精度调节。利用氮气等离子体光谱测试了光谱仪的性能,结果显示分辨率达到设计指标。     

Time‐resolved ion imaging at free‐electron lasers using TimepixCam

The application of a novel fast optical‐imaging camera, TimepixCam, to molecular photoionization experiments using the velocity‐map imaging technique at a free‐electron laser is described. TimepixCam is a 256 × 256 pixel CMOS camera that is able to detect and time‐stamp ion hits with 20 ns timing resolution, thus making it possible to record ion momentum images for all fragment ions simultaneously and avoiding the need to gate the detector on a single fragment. This allows the recording of significantly more data within a given amount of beam time and is particularly useful for pump–probe experiments, where drifts, for example, in the timing and pulse energy of the free‐electron laser, severely limit the comparability of pump–probe scans for different fragments taken consecutively. In principle, this also allows ion–ion covariance or coincidence techniques to be applied to determine angular correlations between fragments.     

Polarization control of an X‐ray free‐electron laser with a diamond phase retarder

A diamond phase retarder was applied to control the polarization states of a hard X‐ray free‐electron laser (XFEL) in the photon energy range 5–20 keV. The horizontal polarization of the XFEL beam generated from the planar undulators of the SPring‐8 Angstrom Compact Free‐Electron Laser (SACLA) was converted into vertical or circular polarization of either helicity by adjusting the angular offset of the diamond crystal from the exact Bragg condition. Using a 1.5 mm‐thick crystal, a high degree of circular polarization, 97%, was obtained for 11.56 keV monochromatic X‐rays, whereas the degree of vertical polarization was 67%, both of which agreed with the estimations including the energy bandwidth of the Si 111 beamline monochromator.     

Diffraction of X‐ray free‐electron laser femtosecond pulses on single crystals in the Bragg and Laue geometry

A solution of the problem of dynamical diffraction for X‐ray pulses with arbitrary dimensions in the Bragg and Laue cases in a crystal of any thickness and asymmetry coefficient of reflection is presented. Analysis of pulse form and duration transformation in the process of diffraction and propagation in a vacuum is conducted. It is shown that only the symmetrical Bragg case can be used to avoid smearing of reflected pulses.     

Numerical study of the Ne-like Cr x-ray laser at 28.6nm

We investigate the Ne-like Cr x-ray laser at $28.6\,\mathrm{nm}$ by using a modified 1D lagrangian hydrodynamic code MED103 coupled with an atomic physics data package and a 2D ray tracing code as a post-processor. The laser pumping configuration includes two prepulses and one main pulse. The first prepulse normally irradiates the target, while the second prepulse and the main pulse irradiate the target at grazing-incident angles. We predict that saturation can be achieved for the Ne-like Cr x-ray lasers with a total pumping energy of $125\,\mathrm{mJ}$. Good beam qualities with no deflecting angle and a small divergence angle of $5\,\mathrm{mrad}$ are observed.     

自由电子激光器谐振腔内电子束和激光脉冲的时间同步

研究自由电子激光器谐振腔内电子束和辐射的时间同步问题.这是激光器谐振腔设计中的一个重要问题.本文讨论了腔内布儒斯特窗片对光路的影响.研制出由微机控制谐振腔的精密微调装置,扫描范围为±3cm,微调精度达1μm.     

EAST极紫外空间分辨光谱分析软件的开发

基于Matlab软件的图形用户界面开发环境(GUIDE)设计开发了一套交互式界面,可以自动读取、解析原始数据,开展波长标定,将谱强度与谱仪系统空间测量位置以及EAST实验放电时间等信息相关联,从而快速、便捷地计算杂质离子发出的线光谱强度的空间分布并绘图。该空间分辨光谱分析软件的开发和应用大大提高了谱仪数据处理和分析的便捷性和效率,保证了放电期间数据处理的准实时性。     

Software for the data analysis of the arrival‐timing monitor at SACLA

X‐ray free‐electron laser (XFEL) pulses from SPring‐8 Ångstrom Compact free‐electron LAser (SACLA) with a temporal duration of <10 fs have provided a variety of benefits in scientific research. In a previous study, an arrival‐timing monitor was developed to improve the temporal resolution in pump–probe experiments at beamline 3 by rearranging data in the order of the arrival‐timing jitter between the XFEL and the synchronized optical laser pulses. This paper presents Timing Monitor Analyzer (TMA), a software package by which users can conveniently obtain arrival‐timing data in the analysis environment at SACLA. The package is composed of offline tools that pull stored data from cache storage, and online tools that pull data from a data‐handling server in semi‐real time during beam time. Users can select the most suitable tool for their purpose, and share the results through a network connection between the offline and online analysis environments.