Haixiao Deng

Using Off-Resonance Laser Modulation for Beam-Energy-Spread Cooling in Generation of Short-Wavelength Radiation

To improve temporal coherence in electron beam based light sources, various techniques employ frequency up conversion of external seed sources via electron beam density modulation; however, the energy spread of the beam may hinder the harmonic generation efficiency. In this Letter, a method is described for cooling the electron beam energy spread by off-resonance seed laser modulation, through the use of a transversely dispersed electron beam and a modulator undulator with an appropriate transverse field gradient. With this novel mechanism, it is shown that the frequency up-conversion efficiency can be significantly enhanced. We present theoretical analysis and numerical simulations for seeded soft x-ray free-electron laser and storage ring based coherent harmonic generation in the extreme ultraviolet spectral region.

Proposal for an X-Ray Free Electron Laser Oscillator with Intermediate Energy Electron Beam

Harmonic lasing of low-gain free electron laser oscillators has been experimentally demonstrated in the terahertz and infrared regions. Recently, the low-gain oscillator has been reconsidered as a promising candidate for hard x-ray free electron lasers, through the use of high reflectivity, high-resolution x-ray crystals. In this Letter, it is proposed to utilize a crystal-based cavity resonant at a higher harmonic of the undulator radiation, together with phase shifting, to enable harmonic lasing of the x-ray free electron laser oscillator, and hence allow the generation of hard x-ray radiation at a reduced electron beam energy. Results show that fully coherent free electron laser radiation with megawatt peak power, in the spectral region of 10-25 keV, can be generated with a 3.5 GeV electron beam.

Demonstration of nonlinear-energy-spread compensation in relativistic electron bunches with corrugated structures

High quality electron beams with flat distributions in both energy and current are critical for many accelerator-based scientific facilities such as free-electron lasers and MeV ultrafast electron diffraction and microscopes. In this Letter, we report on using corrugated structures to compensate for the beam nonlinear energy chirp imprinted by the curvature of the radio-frequency field, leading to a significant reduction in beam energy spread. By using a pair of corrugated structures with orthogonal orientations, we show that the quadrupole wakefields, which, otherwise, increase beam emittance, can be effectively canceled. This work also extends the applications of corrugated structures to the low beam charge (a few pC) and low beam energy (a few MeV) regime and may have a strong impact in many accelerator-based facilities.

Phase-merging enhanced harmonic generation free-electron laser

Together with one of its variants, the recently proposed phase-merging enhanced harmonic generation (PEHG) free-electron laser (FEL) is systematically studied in this paper. Different from a standard high-gain harmonic generation scheme, a transverse gradient undulator is employed to introduce a phase-merging effect into the transversely dispersed electron beam in PEHG. The analytical theory of the phase-merging effect and the physical mechanism behind the phenomenon are presented. Using a representative set of beam parameters, intensive start-to-end simulations for soft x-ray FEL generation are given to illustrate the performance of PEHG. Moreover, some practical issues that may affect the performance of PEHG are also discussed.

Polarization switching demonstration using crossed-planar undulators in a seeded free-electron laser

Polarization switching of light sources is required over a wide spectral range to investigate the symmetry of matter. In this paper, we report the first experimental demonstration of the crossed-planar undulators technique at a seeded free-electron laser, which holds great promise for the full control and fast switching of the polarization of short-wavelength radiation. In the experiment, the polarization state of the coherent radiation at the secondharmonic of the seed laser is switched successfully. The experimental results confirm the theory and pave the way for applying the crossed-planar undulators technique for seeded x-ray free-electron lasers.

Gain cascading scheme of a free-electron-laser oscillator

The low-gain free-electron laser (FEL) oscillators are cutting-edge tools to produce fully coherent radiation in the spectral region from terahertz to vacuum ultraviolet, and potentially in hard X-ray. In this paper, it is proposed to utilize an FEL oscillator with multi-stage undulators to enable gain cascading in a single-pass, making it possible to achieve shorter single pulse lengths, higher peak power, and even higher pulse energy than classical FEL oscillator. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations in the infrared and hard X-ray regions show that our proposal is effective.

Three-dimensional manipulation of electron beam phase space for seeding soft x-ray free-electron lasers

In this letter, a simple technique is proposed to induce strong density modulation into the electron beam with small energy modulation. By using the combination of a transversely dispersed electron beam and a wave-front tilted seed laser, three-dimensional manipulation of the electron beam phase space can be utilized to significantly enhance the micro-bunching of seeded free-electron laser schemes, which will improve the performance and extend the short-wavelength range of a single-stage seeded free-electron laser. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations demonstrate the capability of the proposed technique in a soft x-ray free-electron laser.

Compensating the electron beam energy spread by the natural transverse gradient of laser undulator in all-optical x-ray light sources

All-optical ideas provide a potential to dramatically cut off the size and cost of x-ray light sources to the university-laboratory scale, with the combination of the laser-plasma accelerator and the laser undulator. However, the large longitudinal energy spread of the electron beam from laser-plasma accelerator may hinder the way to high brightness of these all-optical light sources. In this paper, the beam energy spread effect is proposed to be significantly compensated by the natural transverse gradient of a laser undulator when properly transverse-dispersing the electron beam. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations on conventional laser-Compton scattering sources and high-gain all-optical x-ray free-electron lasers with the electron beams from laser-plasma accelerators are presented.

Simulation studies on laser pulse stability for Dalian coherent light source

Dalian Coherent Light Source will use a 300 MeV LINAC to produce fully coherent photon pulses in the wavelength range between 150-50 nm by high gain harmonic generation free electron laser (FEL) scheme. To generate stable FEL pulses, a stringent tolerance budget is required for the LINAC output parameters, such as the mean beam energy stability, electron bunch arrival time jitter, peak current variation and the transverse beam position offset. In order to provide guidance for the design of the Dalian Coherent Light Source, in this paper, the sensitivity of FEL pulse energy fluctuation to various error sources of the electron bunch was performed using intensive start-to-end FEL simulations.

Numerical modeling of a high power terahertz source in Shanghai

On the basis of an energy-recovery linac, a terahertz source with a potential for kilowatts of average power is proposed in Shanghai, which will serve as an effective tool for material and biological sciences. In this paper, the physical design of two free electron laser (FEL) oscillators, in a frequency range of 2-10 THz and 0.5-2 THz respectively, are presented. By using three-dimensional, time-dependent numerical modeling of GENESIS in combination with a paraxial optical propagation code, the THz oscillator performance, the detuning effects, and the tolerance requirements on the electron beam, the undulator field and the cavity alignment are given.