First operation of a free-electron laser generating GW power radiation at 32 nm wavelength

By V. Ayvazyan, N. Baboi, J. Bähr, V. Balandin, B. Beutner, A. Brandt, I. Bohnet, A. Bolzmann, R. Brinkmann, O. Brovko and 118 more. 2006

360 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract.Many scientific disciplines ranging from physics, chemistry and biology to material sciences, geophysics and medical diagnostics need a powerful X-ray source with pulse lengths in the femtosecond range [1-4]. This would allow, for example, time-resolved observation of chemical reactions with atomic resolution. Such radiation of extreme intensity, and tunable over a wide range of wavelengths, can be accomplished using high-gain free-electron lasers (FEL) [5-10]. Here we present results of the first successful operation of an FEL at a wavelength of 32 nm, with ultra-short pulses (25 fs FWHM), a peak power at the Gigawatt level, and a high degree of transverse and longitudinal coherence. The experimental data are in full agreement with theory. This is the shortest wavelength achieved with an FEL to date and an important milestone towards a user facility designed for wavelengths down to 6 nm. With a peak brilliance exceeding the state-of-the-art of synchrotron radiation sources [4] by seven orders of magnitude, this device opens a new field of experiments, and it paves the way towards sources with even shorter wavelengths, such as the Linac Coherent Light Source [3] at Stanford, USA, and the European X-ray Free Electron Laser Facility [4] in Hamburg, Germany.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Radiation, Structural Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8c348d338df9f1956f957e4552777753da1790d4

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Citations in the corpus

Photon Beam Transport and Scientific Instruments at the European XFEL (2017, methodology): “The first short-wavelength FEL user facility starting user operation was FLASH at Deutsches-Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg (Germany), which uses super-conducting accelerator technology [3] and provides FEL radiation in the XUV and soft X-ray spectral region up to the water window [4].”
10 years of pioneering X-ray science at the Free-Electron Laser FLASH at DESY (2019, background): “At a beam energy of 445 MeV, FEL gain and saturation was demonstrated at 32 nm wavelength (Ayvazyan et al., 2006).”
Femtosecond diffractive imaging with a soft-X-ray free-electron laser (2006, methodology): “The FLASH free-electron laser in Hamburg is the first radiation source to permit experiments near the relevant photon energies and intensities.”
Operation of a free-electron laser from the extreme ultraviolet to the water window (2007, methodology): “The electron beam is produced in a radio frequency gun and brought up to an energy of 700 MeV by five accelerating modules ACC1 to ACC5 [14].”
Coherent X-Ray Diffraction Imaging (2012, background): “; the FLASH, DESY, Germany; and the SCSS, SPring-8, Japan [143]–[145].”
Laser-driven nonlinear cluster dynamics (2009, background): “Only recently the vacuum ultraviolet free electron laser (VUV-FEL) FLASH at DESY has been setup, currently delivering pulses with wavelengths down to 6.5 nm at peak energies up to 100µJ (Ayvazyan et al., 2006).”