• M.P. Anania, D. Clark, R.C. Issac, D.A. Jaroszynski, A. J. W. Reitsma, G.H. Welsh, S.M. Wiggins
  USTRAT/SUPA, Glasgow
• J.A. Clarke, M.W. Poole, B.J.A. Shepherd
  STFC/DL/ASTeC, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire
• M.J. de Loos, S.B. van der Geer
  Pulsar Physics, Eindhoven

Recent progress in developing laser-plasma accelerators is raising the possibility of a compact coherent radiation source that could be housed in a medium sized university department. Beam properties from laser-plasma accelerators have been traditionally considered as not being of sufficient quality to produce amplification. Our work shows that this is not the case. Here we present a study of the beam characteristics of a laser-plasma accelerator. We also highlight the latest results on the ALPHA-X compact FEL. We show how the beam properties of the ALPHA-X beam line have been optimized in order to drive a FEL. We discuss the implementation of a focussing system consisting of a triplet of permanent magnet quadrupoles and a triplet of electromagnetic quadrupoles. The design of these devices has been carried out using the GPT (General Particle Tracer "*") code, which considers space charge effects and allows a realistic estimate of electron beam properties along the beam line. The latest measurements of energy spread and emittance will be presented. Currently we have measured energy spreads less than 0.7% and, using a pepper pot, put an upper limit on the emittance of 5 pi mm mrad.

"*" S.B. van der Geer and M.J. de Loos, “General Particle Tracer code: design, implementation and application” (2001);

• S.L. Smith, C.D. Beard, R.K. Buckley, S.R. Buckley, P.A. Corlett, D.J. Dunning, P. Goudket, S.F. Hill, F. Jackson, S.P. Jamison, J.K. Jones, L.B. Jones, P.A. McIntosh, J.W. McKenzie, K.J. Middleman, B.L. Militsyn, A.J. Moss, B.D. Muratori, J.F. Orrett, P.J. Phillips, Y.M. Saveliev, D.J. Scott, B.J.A. Shepherd, N. Thompson, A.E. Wheelhouse, P.H. Williams
  STFC/DL/ASTeC, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire
• K. Harada
  KEK, Ibaraki
• D.J. Holder, P. Weightman
  The University of Liverpool, Liverpool
• M. Surman
  STFC/DL/SRD, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire

ALICE (Accelerators and Lasers In Combined Experiments), a 35 MeV energy recovery linac based light source, is being commissioned and developed as an experimental R&D facility for a wide range of projects that could employ synchronized ultra-short (<1ps) electron bunches and light pulses. A suit of light sources includes an IR FEL, Compton backscattering (CBS) X-ray source, high power THz source and a multi-TW femtosecond laser. The full energy recovery and coherently enhanced, due to shortness of the electron bunches, THz radiation have been already demonstrated on ALICE. Completion of the first phase of the CBS x-ray source experiment and first lasing of the IR FEL by the end of 2009. Status of ALICE experimental facility and latest results on FEL, THz, and CBS development are reported in this paper.