Smith-Purcell free-electron laser
- Dartmount College, Hanover, NH (United States)
The term Smith-Purcell free electron laser can be employed generally to describe any coherent radiation source in which a diffraction grating is used to couple an electron beam with the electromagnetic field. To date, most practical developments of this concept have focused on devices which operate in the millimeter spectral regime. In this paper construction of a Smith-Purcell free-electron laser operating in the far-infrared (FIR) region using a novel resonator cavity design and the electron beam from a low energy (0.5-5 MeV) radio-frequency accelerator will be discussed. A tunable source in this region would have many applications and since the beam energy is low, the small size and low overall cost of such a device would make it a laboratory instrument. Current projects which are progressing towards developing a FIR source are the programs at Stanford and CREOL. Both of these projects are using permanent magnet undulators to couple the electron beam with the electromagnetic field. An alternative approach is to use an electron beam passing over a diffraction grating as the radiating mechanism. This phenomenon is known as Smith-Purcell radiation and was first demonstrated for incoherent emission at visible wavelengths. The addition of feedback enhances the stimulated component of the emission which leads to the growth of coherence. Recent calculations for spontaneous emission have shown that the wiggler parameter and the grating efficiency are analogous. This result has important implications for the development of a Smith-Purcell FEL because a grating based free-electron laser would offer a greater range of tunability at a lower cost than its wiggler based counterpart.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 238840
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-61982-Absts.; CONF-9508156-Absts.; ON: DE96002729; TRN: 96:013329
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 17. international free electron laser conference, New York, NY (United States), 21-25 Aug 1995; Other Information: PBD: [1995]; Related Information: Is Part Of 17th international free electron laser conference and 2nd international FEL users` workshop. Program and abstracts; PB: 300 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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