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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

太赫兹自由电子激光波荡器的设计、测量与优化

波荡器电子轨迹中心偏移和磁场误差对CTFEL装置性能影响很大,通过前期设计和后期测量与优化将其限制在指标要求范围内。在前期设计中尽量避免引入全局性的系统误差：磁结构具有平面反对称结构,保证电子轨迹中心和波荡器磁轴重合;磁结构端部的特殊设计减弱了间隙对出口磁场二次积分的影响;机械系统的大梁和立柱具有良好的刚性,闭环控制系统保证了高的波荡器间隙控制精度,这些措施降低了间隙不一致引入的磁场误差。在后期测量与优化中削弱了磁场的残存全局系统误差和局部随机误差：利用磁场点测台测量了波荡器磁场的纵向和横向分布,通过调节标准单元组件位置对磁场进行了垫补和优化,优化后电子轨迹中心偏移、峰峰值误差、相位误差、好场区及其误差均满足指标要求。     

Physical design of a wavelength tunable fully coherent VUV source using a self-seeding free electron laser

In order to meet the requirements of the synchrotron radiation users, a fully coherent VUV free electron laser (FEL) has been preliminarily designed. One important goal of this design is that the radiation wavelength can be easily tuned in a broad range (70—170 nm). In the light of the users' demand and our actual conditions, the self-seeding scheme is adopted for this proposal. Firstly, we attempted to fix the electron energy and only changed the undulator gap to vary the radiation wavelength; however, our analysis implies that this is difficult because of the great difference of the power gain length and FEL efficiency at different wavelengths. Therefore, we have considered dividing the wavelength range into three subareas. In each subarea, a constant electron energy is used and the wavelength tuning is realized only by adjusting the undulator gap. The simulation results show that this scheme has an acceptable performance.     

Physical design of a wavelength tunable fully coherent VUV source using a self-seeding free electron laser

In order to meet the requirements of the synchrotron radiation users, a fully coherent VUV free electron laser （FEL） has been preliminarily designed. One important goal of this design is that the radiation wavelength can be easily tuned in a broad range （70 170 nm）. In the light of the users＇ demand and our actual conditions, the self-seeding scheme is adopted for this proposal. Firstly, we attempted to fix the electron energy and only changed the undulator gap to vary the radiation wavelength; however, our analysis implies that this is difficult because of the great difference of the power gain length and FEL efficiency at different wavelengths. Therefore, we have considered dividing the wavelength range into three subareas. In each subarea, a constant electron energy is used and the wavelength tuning is realized only by adjusting the undulator gap. The simulation results show that this scheme has an acceptable performance.     

W波段同轴静磁波荡器自由电子激光优化设计

基于同轴静磁波荡器的自由电子激光主要利用环形电子束与同轴TE模式的相互作用产生电磁辐射,是一种重要的毫米波辐射源。分析了同轴结构作用区内外半径、工作模式、电子束电压、波荡器周期等参数对辐射频率的影响规律,研究了电子束平均半径的选取原则和束波互作用腔的设计方法,设计了辐射频率在W波段的基于同轴静磁波荡器的自由电子激光,并进行了粒子模拟,在电子束电压为720 kV,电子束流为1 kA的情况下,获得了频率107 GHz、辐射功率35 MW的TE01模,束波转换效率为4.9%,束波作用腔总长度小于200 mm,同轴静磁波荡器的磁场幅度0.34 T。     

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.     

Extreme‐ultraviolet compact spectrometer for the characterization of the harmonics content in the free‐electron‐laser radiation at FLASH

The design and the commissioning results of a portable and compact spectrometer for the high harmonics content characterization of the extreme‐ultraviolet radiation of FLASH (free‐electron laser in DESY, Hamburg, Germany) are presented. The instrument is a grazing‐incidence flat‐field spectrometer equipped with two variable‐line‐spaced gratings; it covers the 2–40 nm wavelength region with a spectral resolution in the 0.1–0.2% range. Both spectral and intensity fluctuations of the fundamental emission and the harmonics are monitored.     

Free electron laser spectral dynamics with a modulation of electron beam energy

Recent experimental and theoretical works on free electron laser spectral dynamics have pointed out the difficulty to obtain a narrow and stable spectrum operation. This goal can only be achieved by avoiding the sideband generation leading to a broadband and unstable spectrum. Tapered wiggler and two-frequency wiggler are well suited for combining sharp spectrum and high efficiency but are not really compatible with a wide tunability of laser light. Filtering sidebands is a good way for lower power experiments but it seems to be difficult to conceive wideband filters, specially in the far-infrared region. Modulation of electron energy is a new potential soft way for controlling the spectral dynamics of longpulse free electron laser. Spectral dynamics under the modulation is investigated in the linear and non-linear regimes in the far-infrared region. Simulations show that a pulsed and sharp spectrum behavior can be obtained by optimizing the modulation parameters. The interest of such a method for the far-infrared experiments is discussed.     

Free‐electron laser multiplex driven by a superconducting linear accelerator

Free‐electron lasers (FELs) generate femtosecond XUV and X‐ray pulses at peak powers in the gigawatt range. The FEL user facility FLASH at DESY (Hamburg, Germany) is driven by a superconducting linear accelerator with up to 8000 pulses per second. Since 2014, two parallel undulator beamlines, FLASH1 and FLASH2, have been in operation. In addition to the main undulator, the FLASH1 beamline is equipped with an undulator section, sFLASH, dedicated to research and development of fully coherent extreme ultraviolet photon pulses using external seed lasers. In this contribution, the first simultaneous lasing of the three FELs at 13.4 nm, 20 nm and 38.8 nm is presented.     

An analysis of undulator optimization in self-seeding free electron lasers

A simple analysis is given for the optimum length of undulator in a self-seeding free electron laser(FEL).The obtained relations show the correlation between the undulator length and the system parameters.The power required for the seeding in the second part of the undulator and the overall efficiency of monochromatizating the seeding determine the length of the first part of the undulator;the magnitude of seeding power dominates the length of the second part of the undulator;the whole length of the undulator in a self-seeding FEL is determined by the overall efficiency for getting coherent seed,and is about half as long again as that of SASE,not including the dispersion section.The requirement of the dispersion section strength is also analyzed.     

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.