Nicolas Hubert

Control of laser plasma accelerated electrons for light sources

With gigaelectron-volts per centimetre energy gains and femtosecond electron beams, laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) is a promising candidate for applications, such as ultrafast electron diffraction, multistaged colliders and radiation sources (betatron, compton, undulator, free electron laser). However, for some of these applications, the beam performance, for example, energy spread, divergence and shot-to-shot fluctuations, need a drastic improvement. Here, we show that, using a dedicated transport line, we can mitigate these initial weaknesses. We demonstrate that we can manipulate the beam longitudinal and transverse phase-space of the presently available LWFA beams. Indeed, we separately correct orbit mis-steerings and minimise dispersion thanks to specially designed variable strength quadrupoles, and select the useful energy range passing through a slit in a magnetic chicane. Therefore, this matched electron beam leads to the successful observation of undulator synchrotron radiation after an 8 m transport path. These results pave the way to applications demanding in terms of beam quality.Electron beam quality in accelerators is crucial for light source application. Here the authors demonstrate beam conditioning of laser plasma electrons thanks to a specific transport line enabling the control of divergence, energy, steering and dispersion and the application to observe undulator radiation.

Electron and photon diagnostics for plasma acceleration-based FELs

It is now well established that laser plasma acceleration (LPA) is an innovative and good candidate in the beam acceleration field. Relativistic beams are indeed produced up to several GeV but their quality remains to be demonstrated in the highly demanding case of free-electron lasers (FELs). Several experiments have already shown the feasibility of synchrotron radiation delivery based on LPA but free-electron lasing has still to be achieved. Since the quality of the LPA beam inside the undulator is the critical issue, any LPA-based FEL experiment requires a refined characterization of the beam properties along the transport line and of the photon beam at the undulator exit. This characterization relies on diagnostics which must be adapted to the LPA specificities. Here, the electron and photon diagnostics already used on LPAs and required for LPA-based FELs are reviewed, and the critical points are illustrated using recent experiments performed around the world.

Electron Transport on COXINEL Beam Line

COXINEL 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.

Mechanical Engineering Solutions for COXINEL Project

COXINEL (COherent Xray source INferred from Electrons accelerated by Laser) is a European Research Council (ERC) advance grant aims at demonstrating Free Electron Laser amplification at 200 nm with 180 MeV electrons generated by laser plasma acceleration. A special electron beam transfer line with adequate diagnostics has been designed for this project. Strong-focusing variable-field permanent magnet quadrupoles, energy de-mixing chicane and a set of conventional quadrupoles condition the electron beam before its entrance to an In-Vacuum U20 undulator. This presentation describes some of the features incorporated into the design of the magnets, girders, vacuum vessels and diagnostic equipment for this experimental machine. Progress on the equipment preparation and installation is presented as well.

A New Beam Angle Interlock at Soleil

Anatomix and Nanoscopium beamlines are collecting photons generated by two 5.5 mm gap in-vacuum insertion devices installed in a canted straight section. Simultaneous operation of those two beamlines requires particular precautions in terms of alignment of the electron (and photon) beam in the undulators. With the high stored beam current (500 mA), any mis-steering in the upstream undulator could quickly damage the downstream one. Using the classical beam position interlock to guarantee the undulators protection would have constrained too much the operation due to very restrictive position thresholds. Then the machine protection system has been modified to incorporate a new interlock based on the electron beam angle combining two adjacent BPM readings. A description of the system and its performances will be presented.

Experiment preparation towards a demonstration of laser plasma based free electron laser amplification

One direction towards compact Free Electron Laser is to replace the conventional linac by a laser plasma driven beam, provided proper electron beam manipulation to handle the large values of the energy spread and of the divergence. Applying seeding techniques enable also to reduce the required undulator length. The rapidly developing LWFA are already able to generate synchrotron radiation. With an electron divergence of typically 1 mrad and an energy spread of the order of 1 % (or few), an adequate beam manipulation through the transport to the undulator is needed for FEL amplification. Electron beam transfer follows different steps with strong focusing variable strength permanent magnet quadrupoles, an energy demixing chicane with conventional dipoles, a second set of quadrupoles for further dedicated focusing in the undulator. A test experiment for the demonstration of FEL amplification with a LWFA is under preparation and progress on the equipment preparation and expected performance are described.