Abstract
When a short electron bunch traverses an undulator to radiate a wavelength longer than the bunch length, intense superradiance from the electron bunch can quickly deplete the electron's kinetic energy and lead to generation of an isolated chirped radiation pulse. Here, we develop a theory to describe this novel chirped pulse radiation in a superradiant free-electron laser and show the opportunity to generate isolated few-cycle high-power radiation through chirped-pulse compression after the undulator. The theory is completely characterized by how fast the electron energy is depleted for a given length of an undulator. We further present two design examples at the THz and extreme-ultraviolet wavelengths and numerically generate isolated three- and nine-cycle radiation pulses, respectively.
Highlights
High-power radiation is useful for applications requiring high energy density or involving nonlinear dynamics
In view of the high-power solid-state laser successfully demonstrated by optical chirped pulse amplification, a chirped-pulse free-electron laser (FEL) followed by a pulse compressor could be an ideal candidate to generate extremely high-power radiation in the spectrum not readily accessible by a conventional laser source
We have developed a theory to describe the radiation field of such a chirped-pulse superradiant (CPS) FEL
Summary
High-power radiation is useful for applications requiring high energy density or involving nonlinear dynamics. It has been suggested previously to use an energy-chirped electron beam to amplify a frequency-chirped seed laser in an FEL amplifier to obtain temporally compressed high-power radiation at one of the harmonics of the seed laser [1]. Wu et al [3,4] pointed out that manipulating frequency and energy chirps in both the seed radiation and drive beam, respectively, to an FEL allows generation of attosecond few-cycle pulses. We propose a chirped-pulse superradiant (CPS) FEL, in which quick depletion of the electron’s kinetic energy in an undulator generates a frequency chirped radiation pulse. The frequency-chirped output of a CPS FEL can be further compressed to generate an isolated, high-power, few-cycle radiation pulse.
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