Electron-bunch compression using a dynamical nonlinearity correction for a compact x-ray free-electron laser

We propose a novel method to achieve a highly brilliant electron bunch with a peak current of several kA in an x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) by efficiently correcting nonlinearity of the bunch-compression system. In this method, a second-order positive energy chirp is imprinted to the electron bunch by a correction cavity installed at the beginning of the system, namely the nonlinearity is initially overcorrected. The imprinted chirp is enhanced in a compression process at a bunch compressor due to electron bunch rotation in longitudinal phase space, and then continuously corrects the second-order nonlinearity induced in the following sections. Since the frequency and field amplitude of the correction cavity can be significantly lowered to the available technology level, this method enables the use of a high-frequency accelerator, i.e., a high-gradient accelerator, which is indispensable to realize a compact XFEL facility

Brightness analysis of an electron beam with a complex profile

We propose a novel analysis method to obtain the core bright part of an electron beam with a complex phase-space profile. This method is beneficial to evaluate the performance of simulation data of a linear accelerator (linac), such as an x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) machine, since the phase-space distribution of a linac electron beam is not simple, compared to a Gaussian beam in a synchrotron. In this analysis, the brightness of undulator radiation is calculated and the core of an electron beam is determined by maximizing the brightness. We successfully extracted core electrons from a complex beam profile of XFEL simulation data, which was not expressed by a set of slice parameters. FEL simulations showed that the FEL intensity was well remained even after extracting the core part. Consequently, the FEL performance can be estimated by this analysis without time-consuming FEL simulations

Undulator commissioning by characterization of radiation in x-ray free electron lasers

In x-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) where a long undulator composed of many segments is installed, there exist a number of error sources to reduce the FEL gain such as the trajectory error, K value discrepancy, and phase mismatch, which are related to the segmented-undulator structure. Undulator commissioning, which refers to the tuning and alignment processes to eliminate the possible error sources, is thus an important step toward realization of lasing. In the SPring-8 angstrom compact free electron laser (SACLA) facility, the undulator commissioning has been carried out by means of characterization of x-ray radiation, i.e., measurements of the spatial and spectral profiles of monochromatized spontaneous undulator radiation as well as by probing the FEL intensity. The achieved tuning and alignment accuracies estimated from the statistics of actual measurements in SACLA show the effectiveness of this commissioning scheme

High peak current operation of x-ray free-electron laser multiple beam lines by suppressing coherent synchrotron radiation effects

The parallel operation of multiple beam lines is an important means to expand the opportunity of user experiments at x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) facilities. At SPring-8 Angstrom free-electron laser (SACLA), the multi-beam-line operation had been tested using two beam lines, but transverse coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) effects at a dogleg beam transport severely limited the laser performance. To suppress the CSR effects, a new beam optics based on two double bend achromat (DBA) structures was introduced for the dogleg. After the replacement of the beam optics, high peak current bunches of more than 10 kA are now stably transported through the dogleg and the laser pulse output is increased by a factor of 2–3. In the multi-beam-line operation of SACLA, the electron beam parameters, such as the beam energy and peak current, can be adjusted independently for each beam line. Thus the laser output can be optimized and wide spectral tunability is ensured for all beam lines

Pulse-by-pulse multi-beam-line operation for x-ray free-electron lasers

The parallel operation of plural undulator beam lines is an important means of improving the efficiency and usability of x-ray free-electron laser facilities. After the installation of a second undulator beam line (BL2) at SPring-8 Angstrom compact free-electron laser (SACLA), pulse-by-pulse switching between two beam lines was tested using kicker and dc twin-septum magnets. To maintain a compact size, all undulator beam lines at SACLA are designed to be placed within the same undulator hall located downstream of the accelerator. In order to ensure broad tunability of the laser wavelength, the electron bunches are accelerated to different beam energies optimized for the wavelengths of each beam line. In the demonstration, the 30 Hz electron beam was alternately deflected to two beam lines and simultaneous lasing was achieved with 15 Hz at each beam line. Since the electron beam was deflected twice by 3° in a dogleg to BL2, the coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) effects became non-negligible. Currently in a wavelength range of 4–10 keV, a laser pulse energy of 100–150  μJ can be obtained with a reduced peak current of around 1 kA by alleviating the CSR effects. This paper reports the results and operational issues related to the multi-beam-line operation of SACLA