Electron Transport on COXINEL Beam Line

International audienceCOXINEL experiment aims at demonstrating free electron laser (FEL) amplification with a laser plasma accelerator (LPA). For COXINEL, a dedicated 8 m transport line has been designed and prepared at SOLEIL. We present here LPA beam transport results around 180 MeV through this line. Different electron beam optics were applied

Progress Towards Laser Plasma Electron Based Free Electron Laser on COXINEL

International audienceLaser plasma acceleration (LPA) with up to several GeV beam in very short distance appears very promising. The Free Electron Laser (FEL), though very challenging, can be viewed as a qualifying application of these new emerging LPAs. The energy spread and divergence, larger than from conventional accelerators used for FEL, have to be manipulated to fulfil the FEL requirements. On the test experiment COXINEL (ERC340015), the beam is controlled in a manipulation [1,2] line, using permanent magnet quadrupoles of variable strength [3] for emittance handing and a decompression chicane equipped with a slit for the energy selection, enabling FEL amplification for baseline reference parameters [2]. The electron position and dispersion are independently adjusted [4]. The measured spontaneous emission radiated by a 2 m long 18 mm period cryo-ready undulator exhibits the typical undulator spatio-spectral pattern, in agreement with the modelling of the electron beam travelling along the line and of the afferent photon generation. The wavelength is easily tuned with undulator gap variation. A wavelength stability of 2.6% is achieved. The undulator linewidth can be controlled

Towards a Free Electron Laser Using Laser Plasma Acceleration

International audienceSince the laser invention, the advent of X-ray Free Electron Lasers (FEL) half a century later, opens new areas for matter investigation. In parallel, the spectacular development of laser plasma acceleration (LPA) with several GeV beam acceleration in an extremely short distance appears very promising. As a first step, the qualification of the LPA with a FEL application sets a first challenge. Still, energy spread and beam divergence do not meet the state-of-the-art performance of the conventional accelerators and have to be manipulated to fulfill the FEL requirement. We report here on the undulator spontaneous emission measured after a transport manipulation electron beam line, using variable permanent magnet quadrupoles of variable strength for emittance handing and a demixing chicane equipped with a slit for the energy spread. Strategies of control electron beam position and dispersion have been elaborated. The measured undulator radiation provides an insight on the electron beam properties