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Title: Fresh-slice multicolour X-ray free-electron lasers

Journal Article · · Nature Photonics
 [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3]
  1. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT (United States)
  3. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg (Germany)

X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) provide femtosecond X-ray pulses with a narrow energy bandwidth and unprecedented brightness. Ultrafast physical and chemical dynamics, initiated with a site-specific X-ray pulse, can be explored using XFELs with a second ultrashort X-ray probe pulse. However, existing double-pulse schemes are complicated, difficult to customize or provide only low-intensity pulses. Here we present the novel fresh-slice technique for multicolour pulse production, wherein different temporal slices of an electron bunch lase to saturation in separate undulator sections. This method combines electron bunch tailoring from a passive wakefield device with trajectory control to provide multicolour pulses. The fresh-slice scheme outperforms existing techniques at soft X-ray wavelengths. It produces femtosecond pulses with a power of tens of gigawatts and flexible colour separation. The pulse delay can be varied from temporal overlap to almost one picosecond. As a result, we also demonstrate the first three-colour XFEL and variably polarized two-colour pulses.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515; SC0012376
OSTI ID:
1340545
Report Number(s):
SLAC-PUB-16828; nphoton.2016.201; TRN: US1701344
Journal Information:
Nature Photonics, Vol. 10, Issue 11; ISSN 1749-4885
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 112 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (34)

Accurate prediction of X-ray pulse properties from a free-electron laser using machine learning journal June 2017
Attosecond time–energy structure of X-ray free-electron laser pulses journal March 2018
Femtosecond-resolved observation of the fragmentation of buckminsterfullerene following X-ray multiphoton ionization journal September 2019
Mapping few-femtosecond slices of ultra-relativistic electron bunches journal May 2017
Site-selective-induced isomerization of formamide journal January 2019
Experimental demonstration of fresh bunch self-seeding in an X-ray free electron laser journal April 2017
Experimental demonstration of a single-spike hard-X-ray free-electron laser starting from noise journal October 2017
Development of a hard X-ray split-and-delay line and performance simulations for two-color pump-probe experiments at the European XFEL journal June 2018
Atom-specific activation in CO oxidation journal December 2018
Recent advances in ultrafast X-ray sources
  • Schoenlein, Robert; Elsaesser, Thomas; Holldack, Karsten
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 377, Issue 2145 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2018.0384
journal April 2019
Development of ultrafast capabilities for X-ray free-electron lasers at the linac coherent light source
  • Coffee, Ryan N.; Cryan, James P.; Duris, Joseph
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 377, Issue 2145 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2018.0386
journal April 2019
Matching-based fresh-slice method for generating two-color x-ray free-electron lasers journal September 2017
Measurements of wake-induced electron beam deflection in a dechirper at the Linac Coherent Light Source journal October 2017
Generation of coherent two-color pulses at two adjacent harmonics in a seeded free-electron laser journal February 2018
Simple and robust free-electron laser doubler journal October 2019
Demonstration of two-color x-ray free-electron laser pulses with a sextupole magnet journal March 2020
High-Power Femtosecond Soft X Rays from Fresh-Slice Multistage Free-Electron Lasers journal June 2018
Control of the Lasing Slice by Transverse Mismatch in an X-Ray Free-Electron Laser journal August 2018
Superradiant and stimulated-superradiant emission of bunched electron beams journal August 2019
Compact coherence enhancement by subharmonic self-seeding in X-ray free-electron laser facilities journal February 2018
Focal shift induced by source displacements and optical figure errors journal August 2019
Short-wavelength free-electron laser sources and science: a review text January 2017
Model-Independent Tuning for Maximizing Free Electron Laser Pulse Energy text January 2019
Element Selective Probe of the Ultra-Fast Magnetic Response to an Element Selective Excitation in Fe-Ni Compounds Using a Two-Color FEL Source journal January 2017
Development of a hard X-ray split-and-delay line and performance simulations for two-color pump-probe experiments at the European XFEL text January 2018
Mapping few-femtosecond slices of ultra-relativistic electron bunches text January 2017
Accurate prediction of X-ray pulse properties from a free-electron laser using machine learning text January 2017
Atom-specific activation in CO oxidation text January 2018
Demonstration of two-color x-ray free-electron laser pulses with a sextupole magnet text January 2020
Measurements of Wake-induced electron beam deflection in a dechirper at the Linac Coherent Light Source text January 2017
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Short-wavelength free-electron laser sources and science: a review journal October 2017
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Attosecond time–energy structure of X-ray free-electron laser pulses text January 2018

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