Abstract
Free-electron lasers (FEL) are the brightest, coherent sources of short wavelength radiation from the VUV into the x-ray. There is much research interest in reducing the cost and the size of FELs by utilising new accelerator techniques. Laser-plasma accelerator (LPA) are a promising accelerator for next generation compact FEL light sources with many potential advantages due to the high acceleration gradient and large peak currents they offer. The electron beams of a LPA typically have a smaller transverse emittance, a large energy spread and tend to be of shorter duration and higher current than conventional Radio Frequency (RF) accelerators. In this paper, a FEL driven by an electron beam from a typical LPA was simulated using the 3D FEL simulation code Puffin. It is shown that lowering the homogenous electron beam energy spread increases the radiation energy output in a short undulator and , as become less than the FEL, or Pierce parameter ($\rho $), then the peak radiation energy increases and the saturation length reduces significantly as expected.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 065007 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Journal of Physics Communications |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 24 Jun 2019 |
Keywords
- free electron lasers
- wavelength radiation
- x-ray
- radio frequency accelerators