Siegfried Schreiber

Photoinjector drive laser of the FLASH FEL

The upgraded photoinjector drive laser of the free-electron laser facility FLASH at DESY Hamburg is described in this paper. This laser produces trains of 800 and 2400 ultraviolet picosecond pulses at 1 MHz and 3 MHz repetition rate in the trains, respectively. The amplifying elements of the system are Nd:YLF-rods, which are pumped by fiber-coupled semiconductor diodes. Compared to the flashlamp-pumped photocathode laser previously used at FLASH, the new diode-pumped laser features a better reliability and a significantly improved stability of its pulse parameters.

Digital In-line Holography with femtosecond VUV radiation provided by the free-electron laser FLASH

Femtosecond vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) radiation provided by the free-electron laser FLASH was used for digital in-line holographic microscopy and applied to image particles, diatoms and critical point dried fibroblast cells. To realize the classical in-line Gabor geometry, a 1 microm pinhole was used as spatial filter to generate a divergent light cone with excellent pointing stability. At a fundamental wavelength of 8 nm test objects such as particles and diatoms were imaged at a spatial resolution of 620 nm. In order to demonstrate the applicability to biologically relevant systems, critical point dried rat embryonic fibroblast cells were for the first time imaged with free-electron laser radiation.

Running experience with the laser system for the RF gun based injector at the TESLA Test Facility linac

During the run 1998/1999, the new injector based on a laser driven RF gun was brought into operation at the TESLA Test Facility Linac (TTFL) at DESY. A key element of the injector is the laser system to illuminate the RF gun cathode to produce short (ps) electron bunches of high charge (nC). This electron beam is used to perform various experiments for the future TESLA linear collider, and to drive the free electron laser TTF-FEL. The laser design is challenged by the unusual requirement of providing synchronized ps UV pulses in 0.8 ms long trains with ambitious stability requirements. The design was also driven by the requirement to have an operational system with a high reliability. The system is based on a mode locked solid-state (Nd:YLF) pulse train oscillator followed by a linear amplier chain. In a rst phase, a laser pulse rate of 1 MHz within the train has been realized, 2.25 MHz and 9 are in preparation. Performance and running experiences with the laser system during the last TTF run are reported. ( 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Proposing a laser based beam size monitor for the future linear collider

Compton scattering techniques for the measurement of the transverse beam size of particle beams at future linear colliders (FLC) are proposed. At several locations of the beam delivery system (BDS) of the FLC, beam spot sizes ranging from several hundreds to a few micrometers have to be measured. This is necessary to verify beam optics, to obtain the transverse beam emittance, and to achieve the highest possible luminosity. The large demagnification of the beam in the BDS and the high beam power puts extreme conditions on any measuring device. With conventional techniques at their operational limit in FLC scenarios, new methods for the detection of the transverse beam size have to be developed. For this laser based techniques are proposed capable of measuring high power beams with sizes in the micrometer range. In this paper general aspects and critical issues of a generic device are outlined and specific solutions proposed. Plans to install a laser wire experiment at an accelerator test facility are presented.

First beam measurements at the photo injector test facility at DESY Zeuthen

The Photo Injector Test facility at DESY Zeuthen (PITZ) was built to develop electron sources for the TESLA Test Facility Free Electron Laser and future linear colliders. The main goal is to study the production of minimum transverse emittance beams with short bunch length at medium charge (∼1 nC). The facility includes a 1.5 cell L-band cavity with coaxial RF coupler, a solenoid for space charge compensation, a laser capable to generate long pulse trains, an UHV photo cathode exchange system, and different diagnostics tools. Besides an overview of the facility, its main components and their commissioning, this contribution will concentrate on the first measurements at PITZ with photoelectrons. This will include measurements of the transverse and longitudinal laser profile, charge and quantum efficiency, momentum and momentum spread, transverse electron beam profiles at different locations and first results on transverse emittance.

Study of the frequency multiplication process in a multistage HGHG FEL

A new design for a multistage High-Gain Harmonic Generation (HGHG) scheme is proposed. The main difference with previous HGHG schemes is that in our scheme the HGHG technique can be applied more than once in a HGHG chain (single bunch scheme). This is consequence of the fact that the growth of the energy spread due to the HGHG process in our case is much less than initial energy spread, and exponential growth rate in the main undulator is practically the same as without stage sequence. Problems relating to X-ray HGHG FEL are discussed. Our studies have shown that the frequency multiplication process produces a noise degradation proportional to at least the square of the multiplication ratio. This prevents operation of HGHG FEL at a very short wavelength range. The results presented in this paper have demonstrated that the HGHG FEL approach is quite adequate for the VUV coherent source, but not scalable to X-ray devices.

Development of a femtosecond soft X-ray SASE FEL at DESY

Abstract In this paper we describe the extension of the soft X-ray SASE FEL at the TESLA Test Facility (TTF) at DESY for generation of femtosecond pulses. The proposed scheme operates as follows. The first stage is a conventional FEL amplifier seeded by 523 nm external laser. A zero area optical pulse (i.e. the pulse with zero value of optical field in the central area of the pulse) is timed to overlap with the electron bunch. Radiation power is amplified up to the saturation level. Following the first stage the electron beam enters the main 6 nm SASE undulator. Large energy spread is induced in the significant fraction of the electron beam due to the FEL interaction process, and only a small part of the electron bunch (near the center of zero area light pulse) is able to produce radiation in the 6 nm SASE FEL. The SASE FEL described in this paper will provide soft X-ray pulses with 30 fs (FWHM) duration. On the basis of the TTF parameters it should be possible to achieve an average brilliance of 10 22 photons / s 1 / mrad 2 / mm 2 / (0.1% BW). The average number of photons can exceed 1012 photon/pulse.

Beam-based alignment of TTF RF-gun using V-code

The beam dynamics simulation code V, based on the Ensemble Model, is being developed for on-line simulations. One practical application of the V-Code is the beam-based alignment (BBA) of accelerator (TESLA Test Facility) elements. Before we started with BBA the first beam position monitor (BPM1), located after the RF-gun cavity, showed non-zero readings. Moreover the readings depended on RF-power, RF-phase and primary and secondary solenoid currents. This effect could be explained by misalignments of the gun and the solenoids. Such beam offsets must be compensated by means of steering coils but such a procedure can be one of the sources of increased emittances. Based on the V-Code solver a dedicated utility was developed for alignment studies. The laser beam mismatch at the cathode, as well as the primary and secondary solenoid displacements were considered as probable reasons for the misalignment of the beam. A new method for the correction of these misalignments combines a sequence of measurements, simulations and the elimination of the largest imperfections. This semi-automatic method applied to the TTF RF-gun yields a centering of the beam within the accuracy of the BPM 1.

Beam Profile Measurements and Simulations of the Petra Laser-Wire

The Laser-wire will be an essential diagnostic tool at the International Linear Collider. It uses a finely focussed laser beam to measure the transverse profile of electron bunches by detecting the Compton-scattered photons (or degraded electrons) downstream of where the laser beam intersects the electron beam. Such a system has been installed at the PETRA storage ring at DESY, which uses a piezo-driven mirror to scan the laser-light across the electron beam. Latest results of experimental data taking are presented and compared to detailed simulations using the Geant4 based program BDSIM.

Beam profile measurements with the 2-D laser-wire at petra

The current PETRA II Laser-Wire system, being developed for the ILC and PETRA III, uses a piezo- driven mirror to scan laser light across an electron bunch. This paper reports on the recently installed electron-beam finding system, presenting recent horizontal and vertical profile scans with corresponding studies.