David Diering FEL- Free Electron Laser Basics Introductory First of all, the Free Electron Laser is no conventional

laser. While conventional lasers use a medium with bounded electrons, such as solid state, dyes, liquids, gas, and an external energy pump, in example flash lamps or other lasers, in FELs, a beam of free electrons is medium for producing laser radiation and energy pump. In classical lasers the radiation is caused by stimulated emission and because of discontinuous energy levels of bounded electrons, the radiation has certain energies. In comparison to that, a FEL produces light by spontaneous emission. Therefore, it is no Light Ampflification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. But since the FEL generates monocromatic coherent polarized radiation of high intensity it is also called 'laser'. Furthermore, the amplification is also dependent on the number of existing photons. Another big difference arises due to the fact that free electrons have a continuous energy range. As a result the generated radiation theoretically has a wide continuous frequency range. More precisely, the achieved wave lengths range from millimeters, over microwave, infrared, optical wave lengths and UV, to X-rays. main components The FEL can be considered as a source, which produces synchrotron radiation of high coherence and brilliance. Thus the FEL has two main components. Firstly, the source for the free electron beam, for instance a linear accelerator (linac). And Secondly an undulator, generating the radiation. An undulator is a special setup of dipol magnets which creates an alternating field. Therefore, electrons are accelerated perpendicular to the direction of motion and magnetic field. As a consequence electrons are moving on a sinusoidal path and are forced to oscillate, so that they radiate. Dipol magnets have a distance of u . For relativistic energies of the electrons, the wavelenght of radiation emitted in direction of the undulator is determined by l = u 2
2

K2 2

where K is the undulator parameter K = e B0 u . From this we can see 2 me c

that the wavelength is dependent on the magnetic field B 0, the distance between magnets u, and the energy of electrons, because of the Lorentz factor .

scheme of an undulator

To achieve a convenient quality of radiation, the electrons in the beam have to have nearly the same velocity, and K<1. In addition to that, higher odd harmonics of FEL-radiation exist, which enables

the FEL to reach very short wavelengths. The described components are the same of a normal synchrotron radiation source. The difference to a usual synchrotron is the interaction between the electrons their emitted radiation, respectively radiation of a suitable external source, in a FEL. In a normal synchrotron(e.g. short undulator) electrons radiate independent of each other. Energy transfer How does the interaction between electrons and electromagnetic(em)-radiation amplify the radiation process? The electrons feel the existing radiation as an EM-field. Electrons are slower than the light wave, hence to their rest mass and the longer sinusoidal path they have to take. To transfer energy to the light wave, the transversal velocity of an electron has to be parallel to the pulsating em-field. This condition is fulfilled when the light wave slips by half an optical wavelength in a half-period of the electron trajectory. Thus the wavelength of the injected radiation has to be the same as of the emitted undulator light u.

energy transfer from electron to light wave

This is the basis for the so-called SASE mechanism, where the interaction takes place between radiation the electrons emit and theirselves. In contrast, energy is transfered from the light wave to the electron, if transversal velocity and pulsating em-field are antiparallel. As the electron bunches are longer than wavelength of the emitted light and are equally distributed, there will be equally many electrons parallel and antiparallel to the pulsating em-field. If the injected and emitted wavelength is identical, the net energy exchange is zero. Nevertheless, there will be amplification if the electron energy is higher than the resonance energy, precisely W e W res= Microbunching To accomplish the high intensity of FEL radiation, a large number of electrons have to radiate coherently. For that aim, one uses the effect called microbunching. In the beginning all electrons have the same velocity. When interacting with the light wave, electrons losing energy to the light wave travel on a trajectory with higher spatial amplitude and thus are decelerated and electrons withdraw energy from the em-wave are accelerated. Consequently, the longitudinal velocity is modulated by the light wave and electron bunches develop to thin slices, which may be shorter than the wavelength. Further, these slices are close to the position of maximum energy

u K2 1 m0 c 2 . 2 l 2

transfer to the light wave and also the distance between 2 neighboured slices is exactly one wave length of the modulating radiation. The amount of radiation is the same as before, but now microbunches radiate like a single particle of high charge generating a high intensive radiation, which supports the microbunching process even more and, therefore, we have an exponential growth of energy of the radiation pulse until saturation is reached and the microbunches are fully developed.

development of microbunches over time(way traveled in undulator)

Operation modes There are different operation modes possible, depending on the requested wavelength. In the regime of microwaves and optical wavelengths, optical resonators can be used. This enables the operator to use shorter undulators in a electron storage ring. In every cycle the bunches develop a little, the radiation is amplified as described above and the intensity grows a few percents. This setup is called Low-gain FEL. Nonetheless, the FEL can reach a high output power with a sufficient large number of cycles and a long life time of the optical eigen mode.

Low-gain FEL setup scheme

Unfortunately in the regime of wavelengths below 100 nm, there are no suitable mirrors for a resonator cavity. Therefore, the whole process of microbunching has to be done in a single pass. As a consequence very long undulators are needed. Moreover, it is difficult to get a seeding laser for the extreme UV and x-ray regime. As a solution, the spontaneous emission of the undulator can be used as a seeding source. For this reason the process is called a Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission or short SASE. Of course the same process can be used for radiation in optical range, but Low-gain FEL setups are easier to construct and cheaper than so-called High-gain FEL. High-gain

FELs can be characterized by there gain length in which the FEL power grows exponentially. For shorter wavelengths the gain length grows and as a result longer undulators are needed.

High-gain FEL scheme

We can summarize two methods of producing Laser radiation in FEL: On the one hand, Light Amplification by energy transfer to the light wave which is used in low-gain FEL and, on the other hand, generation of high intensive light pulses by microbunching, used in high-gain FEL. In SASE FEL we can say that laser radiation is produced in three steps. In a first undulator spontaneous radiation is created and the SASE process is starting, serving as seed radiation in the main undulator. Meanwhile electron beam and seeding beam will be splitted and the seed radiation will be monochromized. Thereafter, in the main undulator the SASE process is driven to saturation in a controlled way and a high brilliant coherent radiation is achieved.

scheme of SASE FEL

Special Properties Although FELs are tunable over a large range of wavelengths, FELs are mostly optimized for a certain wavelength or a narrow regime, for instance the source of the electron beam and the properties of undulators. In FLASH a high-gain FEL is used with 27m undulator to accomplish wavelengths of tens to a few nm. For the XFEL which operates in X-ray regime of subnanometers undulators of more than 100m length are required. In the time of 2005-07 the range was from 47 nm to 4.5 nm. With higher harmonics 2.7 nm was achieved. Newest developments give wavelengths about 1-5 The MaxIV short pulse facility is planned to work in the regime of 0.4 to 6.5 . Also the at SLAC a XFEL is planned to work at 1.5 . The beam energies ranges are SLAC/LCSL FLASH MaxIV 3 mJ/pulse, 1.1 mJ/x-ray pulse; 1.5 up to 100 J/pulse in average; 47-4.5 nm , 1 - 5 1.8-30 keV

References: http://www.xfel.eu/overview/how_does_it_work/ http://hasylab.desy.de/facilities/flash/machine/how_it_works/index_eng.html Info brochure from desy.de Springer Tracts in Modern Physics vol.229: Ultraviolet and Soft X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers Introduction to Physical Principles, Experimental Results, Technological Challenges. DOI: 978-3-540-79572-8