The Stanford Picosecond FEL Center

Abstract

In the past two years, FELs have decisively passed the threshold of scientific productivity. There are now six FEL facilities in the United States and Europe, each delivering more than 2000 hours of FEL beam time per year. at the present time approximately 100 papers are published each in referred journals describing optics experiments performed with FELs. Despite the recent success there are important challenges the FEL facilities must address. At Stanford these challenges include: (1) Providing sufficient experimental time at reasonable cost: At Stanford we provide 2000 hours of experimental time per year at a cost of approximately $500 per hour: We are now studying options for markedly increasing experimental time and decreasing cost per hour. (2) Competing effectively with conventional lasers in the mid-IR: Despite the NRC report we do not intend to concede the mid-IR to conventional lasers. FELs are capable of providing optical beams of exceptional quality and stability, and they can also be remarkable flexible devices. Improvements in our superconducting linac driver and our optical beam conditioning systems will dramatically enhance our FEL experimental capabilities. (3) making the transition from first generation to second generation experiments: Important pump-probe and photon echo experiments have been performedmore » at Stanford and others are feasible using present capabilities. None-the-less we are now investing substantial experimental time to improving signal-to-noise and developing other optical cababilities. (4) Extending operation to the far-infrared where the FEL is unique inits capabilities: {open_quotes}FIREFLY{close_quotes} will extend our FEL capabilities to 100 microns. We are now seeking funds for optical instrumentation. (5) Creating and maintaining a good environment for graduate students.« less