Undulator Entrance Research Articles

Electron beam analysis and sensitivity studies for the EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB RF injector

The interest in plasma-based accelerators as drivers of user facilities is growing worldwide thanks to their compactness and reduced costs. The EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB collaboration is preparing a technical design report for a multi-GeV plasma-based accelerator with outstanding electron beam quality to pilot an X-ray FEL, the most demanding in terms of beam brightness. The beam dynamics has been studied aiming to a reliable operation of the RF injector to generate a so-called comb-beam with 500 MeV energy suitable as driver of the Beam-driven Plasma Wakefield Accelerator. A case of interest is the generation of a trailing bunch with 1 GeV energy, less than 1 mm-mrad transverse emittance and up to 2 kA peak current at the undulator entrance. The comb-beam is generated through the velocity bunching technique, an RF compression tool that enables high brightness beams within relatively compact machine. Since it is based on a rotation of the beam phase space inside the external RF fields, it could be particularly sensitive to amplitude and phase jitters in the RF injector. The electron beam dynamics and the machine sensitivity to the possible jitters are presented in terms of effect on the beam quality so to provide the basis for the jitter tolerances.

Generation and Characterization of Intense Ultralow-Emittance Electron Beams for Compact X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers.

The transverse emittance of the electron beam is a fundamental parameter in linac-based x-ray free-electron lasers (FELs). We present results of emittance measurements carried out at SwissFEL, a compact x-ray FEL facility at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, including a description of the novel high-resolution measurement techniques and the optimization procedure. We obtained slice emittance values at the undulator entrance down to 200nm for an electron beam with a charge of 200pC and an rms duration of 30-40fs. Furthermore, we achieved slice emittances as low as 100nm for 10pC beams with few fs duration. These values set new standards for electron linear accelerators. The quality, verification, and control of our electron beams allowed us to generate high-power FEL radiation for a wavelength as short as 0.1nm using an electron beam with an energy of only 6GeV. The emittance values demonstrated at SwissFEL would allow producing hard x-ray FEL pulses with even lower-energy beams, thus paving the way for even more compact and cost-effective FEL facilities.

Tapering enhanced stimulated superradiant oscillator

In this paper, we present a new kind of high power and high efficiency free-electron laser oscillator based on the application of the tapering enhanced stimulated superradiant amplification (TESSA) scheme. The main characteristic of the TESSA scheme is a high intensity seed pulse which provides high gradient beam deceleration and efficient energy extraction. In the oscillator configuration, the TESSA undulator is driven by a high repetition rate electron beam and embedded in an optical cavity. A beam-splitter is used for outcoupling a fraction of the amplified power and recirculate the remainder as the intense seed for the next electron beam pulse. The mirrors in the oscillator cavity refocus the seed at the undulator entrance and monochromatize the radiation. In this paper we discuss the optimization of the system for a technologically relevant example at 1 $\mu$m using a 1~MHz repetition rate electron linac starting with an externally injected igniter pulse.

RF injector design studies for the trailing witness bunch for a plasma-based user facility

The interest in plasma-based accelerators as drivers of user facilities is growing worldwide thanks to its compactness and reduced costs. In this context the EuPRAXIA collaboration is preparing a conceptual design report for a multi-GeV plasma-based accelerator with outstanding electron beam quality to pilot, among several applications, the operation of an X-ray FEL, the most demanding in terms of beam brightness. Intense beam dynamics studies have been performed to provide a reliable working point for the RF injector to generate a high-brightness trailing witness bunch suitable in external injection schemes, both in particle beam and laser driven plasma wakefield acceleration. A case of interest is the generation of a witness beam with 1 GeV energy, less than 1 mm mrad slice emittance and 30 pC in 10 fs FWHM bunch length, which turns into 3 kA peak current at the undulator entrance. The witness beam has been successfully compressed down to 10 fs in a conventional SPARC-like photo-injector and boosted up to 500 MeV in an advanced high-gradient X-band linac reaching the plasma entrance with 3 kA peak current and the following RMS values: 0.06% energy spread, 0.5 mm mrad transverse normalised emittance and a focal spot down to 1 μm. RF injector studies are here presented with the aim to satisfy the EuPRAXIA requests for the Design Study of a plasma-based user facility.

Generation of large-bandwidth x-ray free-electron-laser pulses

X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) are modern research tools in disciplines such as biology, material science, chemistry, and physics. Besides the standard operation that aims at minimizing the bandwidth of the produced XFEL radiation, there is a strong scientific demand to produce large-bandwidth XFEL pulses for several applications such as nanocrystallography, stimulated Raman spectroscopy, and multiwavelength anomalous diffraction. We present a self-consistent method that maximizes the XFEL pulse bandwidth by systematically maximizing the energy chirp of the electron beam at the undulator entrance. This is achieved by optimizing the compression scheme and the electron distribution at the source in an iterative back-and-forward tracking. Start-to-end numerical simulations show that a relative bandwidth of 3.25% full-width can be achieved for the hard x-ray pulses in the SwissFEL case.

The effects of magnetic fringe fields on beam dynamics in a beam transport line of a terahertz FEL source

The transport line used in a terahertz FEL device has to transport electron beam through the entire system efficiently and meet the requirements of the beam parameters at the undulator entrance. Due to space limitations, the size of the magnets (five quadrupoles and two bending magnets) employed in the transport line was limited, and some devices were densely packed. In this paper, analyses of the effect of fringe fields and magnetic interference of magnets are presented. 3D models of these magnets are built and their linear optical properties are compared with those obtained by hard edge models. The results indicated that the effects of these factors are significant and they would cause a mismatch of the beam at the exit of the transport line under the preliminary lattice design. To solve this problem, the beam was re-matched using the particle swarm optimization algorithm.

Impact of Non-Gaussian Electron Energy Heating upon the Performance of a Seeded Free-Electron Laser

Laser-heater systems have been demonstrated to be an important component for the accelerators that drive high gain free electron laser (FEL) facilities. These heater systems suppress longitudinal microbunching instabilities by inducing a small and controllable slice energy spread to the electron beam. For transversely uniform heating, the energy spread augmentation is characterized by a non-Gaussian distribution. In this Letter, we demonstrate experimentally that in addition to suppression of the microbunching instability, the laser heater-induced energy distribution can be preserved to the FEL undulator entrance, significantly impacting the performance of high-gain harmonic generation (HGHG) FELs, especially at soft x-ray wavelengths. In particular, we show that the FEL intensity has several local maxima as a function of the induced heating caused by the non-Gaussian energy distribution together with a strong enhancement of the power at high harmonics relative to that expected for an electron beam with an equivalent Gaussian energy spread at an undulator entrance. These results suggest that a single stage HGHG FEL can produce scientifically interesting power levels at harmonic numbers m ≥ 25 and with current seed laser technology could reach output photon energies above 100 eV or greater.

A compact hard X-ray free-electron laser based on velocity bunching

We show that a femto-second hard X-ray radiation pulse can be generated in a free-electron laser amplifier without magnetic bunch compressors. This is possible by adopting a very low charge electron beam followed by the velocity bunching (VB) in two accelerating sections in a linear accelerator. With VB, an electron bunch with a bunch charge of 10 pC can be successfully compressed in the presence of the space-charge effect by a factor of 150, from 0.2 ps to 1.3 fs rms. Multi-gigawatt hard X-ray radiation can be generated from a 5-GeV electron beam, saturating in approximately a 40-m distance from the undulator entrance. Various accelerator and electron-beam parameters were optimized using a multi-objective genetic algorithm.

High Performance Electron Injectors

Fourth generation light sources based on high gain free electron lasers require production, acceleration and transport up to the undulator entrance of high brightness (low emittance, high peak current) electron bunches. Wake field effects in accelerating sections and in magnetic bunch compressors typically contribute to emittance degradation, and hence the design of the injector and its operation constitute the leading edge for high quality beam production and for the success of the future light sources. RF and DC guns, cathode materials, laser pulse shaping and sub-picosecond synchronization systems are evolving toward a mature technology to produce high quality and stable beams. Nevertheless, reduction of thermal emittance, damping of emittance oscillations and bunch compression are still the main issues and challenges for injector designs. With the advent of energy recovery linacs, superconducting RF guns have been also considered in many new projects as a possible electron source operating in CW mode. An overview of recent advancements and future perspectives of high performance electron injectors are presented in this article.

The Green's function for a linear energy chirped seeded free electron laser

In a free electron laser (FEL), the electron beam at the undulator entrance can have a correlated energy spread. In this paper, we derive an expression of the seeded FEL Green's function for the case of an electron beam having a linear energy chirp, within the one-dimensional Vlasov–Maxwell model. This Green's function allows to evaluate the FEL electromagnetic radiation in both the lethargy and the exponential growth regime, without the asymptotic approximation introduced in previous works. We show a comparison between the proposed expression for the Green's function and the one obtained with a saddle point approximation, for both cases of short and long undulators.

Impact of an initial energy chirp and an initial energy curvature on a seeded free electron laser: free electron laser properties

In a free electron laser (FEL), the electron bunch energy profile at the undulator entrance can have temporal structures. In this paper, we derive analytical expressions for the FEL in the undulator, in the case of the electron bunch having both energy chirp and energy curvature. The FEL properties are studied analytically by convoluting a Gaussian seed laser with the FEL Green's function obtained by solving the coupled Vlasov–Maxwell equations. In particular, for different ratios of the temporal duration of the seed laser and that of the Green's function, interesting behavior is revealed.

Impact of an initial energy chirp and an initial energy curvature on a seeded free electron laser: the Green's function

In a free electron laser (FEL), the electron bunch energy profile at the undulator entrance can have temporal structures. In this paper, we derive the FEL Green's function for the case of the electron bunch having both energy chirp and energy curvature by solving the coupled Vlasov–Maxwell equations. We give an integral representation as well as an analytic expression for the Green's function. The analytical expression is compared with direct numerical results. Evolution of the Green's function temporal duration and the frequency bandwidth are studied.

Longitudinal impedance and wake from XFEL undulators. Impact on current-enhanced SASE schemes

In this article we derive longitudinal impedance and wake function for an undulator setup with arbitrary undulator parameter, taking into account a finite transverse size of the electron bunch. Earlier studies considered a line density-distribution of electrons instead. We focus our attention on the long-wavelength asymptote (compared with resonance wavelength), at large distance of the electron bunch from the undulator entrance compared to the overtaking length, and for large vacuum-chamber size compared to the typical transverse size of the field. These restrictions define a parameter region of interest for practical applications. We calculate a closed expression for impedance and wake function that may be evaluated numerically in the most general case. Such expression allows us to derive an analytical solution for a Gaussian transverse and longitudinal bunch shape. Finally, we study the feasibility of current-enhanced SASE schemes (ESASE) recently proposed for LCLS, that fall well-within our approximations. Numerical estimations presented in this paper indicate that impedance-induced energy spread is sufficient to seriously degrade the FEL performance.

Beam dynamics in a high brightness linac for short wavelength SASE-FEL experiments

Short wavelength SASE-FEL requires generation and transport up to the undulator entrance of low emittance (∼1–2 mm mrad) high peak current (∼1–3 kA) electron beams with energy higher than 1 GeV. The propagation of such a high brightness beam takes place in a transition regime from space charge to emittance dominated dynamics, as the beam energy increases. In addition, in downstream magnetic compressor devices where the peak current increases up to kA range, the transition may occur again. Under these conditions, the electron beam has to be properly matched to the linac accelerating sections in order to keep under control emittance oscillations driven by residual space charge effects. Generalized invariant envelope matching conditions are discussed in this paper, showing that an equilibrium between RF focusing forces and space charge/emittance defocusing forces can be attained without any additional external focusing along the linac (no quadrupoles), thus reducing alignment problems and mitigating emittance dilutions due to misalignments and beam parameter jitters.

Optical klystron enhancement to self-amplified spontaneous emission free electron lasers

The optical klystron enhancement to self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) free electron lasers (FELs) is studied in theory and in simulations. In contrast to a seeded FEL, the optical klystron gain in a SASE FEL is not sensitive to any phase mismatch between the radiation and the microbunched electron beam. The FEL performance with the addition of four optical klystrons located at the undulator long breaks in the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) shows significant improvement if the uncorrelated energy spread at the undulator entrance can be controlled to a very small level. In addition, FEL saturation at shorter x-ray wavelengths (around $1.0\text{ }\AA{}$) within the LCLS undulator length becomes possible. We also discuss the application of the optical klystron in a compact x-ray FEL design that employs relatively low electron beam energy together with a shorter-period undulator.

Start-to-end simulations of SASE FEL at the TESLA Test Facility, phase 1

Phase 1 of the vacuum ultra-violet free-electron laser (FEL) at the TESLA Test Facility recently concluded operation. It successfully demonstrated the saturation of a SASE FEL in the wavelength range of 80–120nm. We present a posteriori start-to-end numerical simulations of this FEL. These simulations are based on the programs Astra and elegant for the generation and transport of the electron distribution. An independent simulation of the intricate beam dynamics in the magnetic bunch compressor is performed with the program CSRtrack. The SASE FEL process is simulated with the code FAST. From our detailed simulations and the resulting phase space distribution at the undulator entrance, we found that the FEL was driven only by a small fraction (slice) of the electron bunch. This “lasing slice” is located in the head of the bunch, and has a peak current of approximately 3kA. A strong energy chirp (due to the space charge field after compression) within this slice had a significant influence on the FEL operation. Our study shows that the radiation pulse duration is about 40fs (FWHM) with a corresponding peak power of 1.5GW. The simulated FEL properties are compared with various experimental data and found to be in excellent agreement.

Start-to-end simulations of SASE FEL at the TESLA Test Facility, Phase I: comparison with experimental results

VUV SASE FEL at the TESLA Test Facility (Phase 1) was successfully running and reached saturation in the wavelength range 80– 120 nm . We present a posteriori start-to-end simulations of this machine. The codes Astra and elegant are used to track particle distribution from the cathode to the undulator entrance. An independent simulation of the beam dynamics in the bunch compressor is performed with the code CSRtrack. SASE FEL process is simulated with the code FAST. Simulation results are in a good agreement with the measured properties of SASE FEL radiation.

Misalignment effects of segmented undulator in self-amplified spontaneous emission

Effects caused by misalignment of undulator segments on the gain of a free electron laser (FEL) based on the process of self-amplified spontaneous emission are theoretically studied. The well-known FEL equations are solved analytically and numerically with boundary conditions describing the misalignment effect in order to obtain the amplification gain as a function of the distance from the undulator entrance. The two worst cases of alignment are considered. One is that the phase slip over the drift section between the adjacent segments is $\ensuremath{\pi}$, and the other is that the radiation is cut off at the drift section. Calculations show that if the undulator segment is several times as long as the gain length, the radiation power is close to that of no segmentation in both cases.

Studies of the collimation system for the TTF FEL at DESY

A collimation scheme for the protection of the undulators at the TESLA Test Facility phase 2 (TTF2) is discussed. The transverse and energy collimation, and the protection against off-energy and mis-steered bunches are proposed in a beam line which, besides the collimation elements, integrates the fast feedback system and matches the beam to the undulator entrance.

Study and optimization of the electron beam transport line of the FEL CLIO

The CLIO infrared free electron laser (FEL) electron transport system has been optimized for FEL operation above 16 μm which required electron energies below 32 MeV. Achromaticity has been optimized at the undulator entrance. Measurements confirm the optimization procedure. At lower energies, a magnetic pulse compression effect leads to an enhancement of the peak current.