No Arabic abstract
Echo-enabled harmonic generation free-electron lasers (EEHG FELs) are promising candidates to produce fully coherent soft x-ray pulses by virtue of efficient high harmonic frequency up-conversion from UV lasers. The ultimate spectral limit of EEHG, however, remains unclear, because of the broadening and distortions induced in the output spectrum by residual broadband energy modulations in the electron beam. We present a mathematical description of the impact of incoherent (broadband) energy modulations on the bunching spectrum produced by the microbunching instability through both the accelerator and the EEHG line. The model is in agreement with a systematic experimental characterization of the FERMI EEHG FEL in the photon energy range $130-210$ eV. We find that amplification of electron beam energy distortions primarily in the EEHG dispersive sections explains an observed reduction of the FEL spectral brightness that is proportional to the EEHG harmonic number. Local maxima of the FEL spectral brightness and of the spectral stability are found for a suitable balance of the dispersive sections strength and the first seed laser pulse energy. Such characterization provides a benchmark for user experiments and future EEHG implementations designed to reach shorter wavelengths.
Fine time-resolved analysis of matter - i.e. spectroscopy and photon scattering - in the linear response regime requires a fs-scale pulsed, high repetition rate, fully coherent X-ray source. A seeded Free-Electron Laser (FEL) driven by a Super-Conducting Linac, generating $10^{8}$-$10^{10}$ coherent photons at 2-5 keV with abou 0.5 MHz of repetition rate, can address this need. The seeding scheme proposed is the Echo-Enabled Harmonic Generation, alimented by a FEL Oscillator working at 13.6 nm with a cavity based on Mo-Si mirrors. The whole chain of the X-ray generation is here described by means of start-to-end simulations. Comparisons with the Self Amplified Spontaneus Emission and a fresh-bunch harmonic cascade performed with similar electron beams show the validity of this scheme.
An optics-free method is proposed to generate X-ray radiation with spatially variant states of polarization via an afterburner extension to a Free Electron Laser (FEL). Control of the polarization in the transverse plane is obtained through the overlap of different coherent transverse light distributions radiated from a bunched electron beam in two consecutive orthogonally polarised undulators. Different transverse profiles are obtained by emitting at a higher harmonic in one or both of the undulators. This method enables the generation of beams structured in their intensity, phase, and polarization - so-called Poincare beams - at high powers with tunable wavelengths. Simulations are used to demonstrate the generation of two different classes of light with spatially inhomogeneous polarization - cylindrical vector beams and full Poincare beams.
We propose a new scheme to generate high-brightness and temporal coherent soft x-ray radiation in a seeded free-electron laser. The proposed scheme is based the coherent harmonic generation (CHG) and superradiant principles. A CHG scheme is first used to generate coherent signal at ultra-high harmonics of the seed. This coherent signal is then amplified by a series of chicane-undulator modules via the fresh bunch and superradiant processes in the following radiator. Using a representative of realistic set of parameters, three-dimensional simulations have been carried out and the simulations results demonstrated that 10 GW-level ultra-short coherent radiation pulses in the water window can be achieved by using the proposed technique.
The problem of X-ray Free-Electron Laser operating on self-amplified spontaneous emission in irregular microundulator is considered. The case when the spectrum width of spontaneous radiation is conditioned by the spatial distribution of sources creating the undulating field is considered. In this case gain function of the stimulated radiation is dozens of times higher than that of the conventional undulators. We propose a model of irregular microundulator, which can be used to construct a drastically cheap and compact X-ray free-electron laser operating on medium energy electron bunch.
A feasible method is proposed to generate isolated attosecond terawatt x-ray radiation pulses in high-gain free-electron lasers. In the proposed scheme, a frequency chirped laser pulse is employed to generate a gradually-varied spacing current enhancement of the electron beam and a series of spatiotemporal shifters are applied between the undulator sections to amplify a chosen ultra-short radiation pulse from self-amplified spontaneous emission. Three-dimensional start-to-end simulations have been carried out and the calculation results demonstrated that 0.15 nm x-ray pulses with peak power over 1TW and duration of several tens of attoseconds could be achieved by using the proposed technique.