Abstract
The first demonstration of an optical-wavelength laser by Theodore Maiman in 1960 had a transformational impact on the paths that would be blazed to advance the state of the art of short wavelength coherent electron beam-based radiation sources. Free electron lasers (FELs) emerged from these efforts as the electron beam-based realization of the pioneering model of atom-based ``optical masers'' by Schawlow and Townes, but with far greater potential for tunable operation at high power and very short wavelengths. Further opportunities for yet greater capabilities may be inherent in our still growing understanding of the underlying physics. This article focuses on the FEL efforts in which the author was directly and personally involved.
Highlights
[1] I was fascinated by the invisible but very real mechanisms that operated in the vacuum tubes that my brother and I used in our transmitters: One could clearly observe their brightly glowing cathodes, but the electrons streaming from their cathodes were invisible to our eyes, as were their interactions with the fields and currents in the interconnected resonant circuits that converted their periodic pulsations to the sinusoidal currents that excited the free space waves launched by our carefully crafted Yagi antennas
I came to have an unusually complete knowledge of the status of vacuum tube technology by the time I graduated from high school in 1960, and had
In the further interest of brevity, I have organized this account around the efforts in which I was directly and personally involved. While this focus will inevitably omit mention of the many important contributions made by those other individuals who joined this effort elsewhere in the years after the first Free electron lasers (FELs) experiments, I think this approach is one of the more effective means available to convey a general understanding of the basic steps that were needed to transition the state of the art from the electron beam-based microwave and millimeter sources available for use in 1960 to the high brightness FEL light sources that define the frontier of tunable coherent laser technology at wavelengths extending deep into the x-ray region
Summary
As a young amateur radio enthusiast in the 1950s [1] I was fascinated by the invisible but very real mechanisms that operated in the vacuum tubes that my brother and I used in our transmitters: One could clearly observe their brightly glowing cathodes, but the electrons streaming from their cathodes were invisible to our eyes, as were their interactions with the fields and currents in the interconnected resonant circuits that converted their periodic pulsations to the sinusoidal currents that excited the free space waves launched by our carefully crafted Yagi antennas. In the further interest of brevity, I have organized this account around the efforts in which I was directly and personally involved While this focus will inevitably omit mention of the many important contributions made by those other individuals who joined this effort elsewhere in the years after the first FEL experiments, I think this approach is one of the more effective means available to convey a general understanding of the basic steps that were needed to transition the state of the art from the electron beam-based microwave and millimeter sources available for use in 1960 to the high brightness FEL light sources that define the frontier of tunable coherent laser technology at wavelengths extending deep into the x-ray region
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