DESY, Hamburg
Uni HH, Hamburg
The free-electron laser user facility FLASH at DESY, Germany has been upgraded. The upgrade started in autumn 2009 after almost 2 years of a very successful second user period. The beam energy is increased to 1.2 GeV by installing a 7th superconducting accelerating module. The new module is a prototype for the European XFEL. Among many other upgrades, 3rd harmonic superconducting RF cavities are installed in the injector. The main purpose is to flatten and - to a certain extend - to shape the longitudinal electron beam phase space improving the dynamics behavior of the beam. The seeding experiment sFLASH is being commissioned, an important step forward to establish seeded FEL radiation for user experiments. After the ongoing commissioning, the 3rd user period will start this summer. In many aspects FLASH will be an FEL with a new quality of performance: a wavelength approaching the carbon edge and the water window, tunable pulse width, and with thousands of pulses per second. This report summarizes the recently finished upgrade of FLASH and reports on the results of the ongoing commissioning and the expected performance as a free electron laser user facility.
DESY, Hamburg
The free-electron laser facility FLASH at DESY, Germany finished its second user period scheduled from November 2007 to August 2009. More than 300 days have been devoted for user operation, a large part of beamtime has been allocated for machine studies for further developments, including beamtime for XFEL and ILC R&D. FLASH provides trains of fully coherent 10 to 50 femtosecond long laser pulses in the wavelength range from 40 nm to 6.8 nm. The SASE radiation contains also higher harmonics; several experiments have successfully used the third and fifth harmonics. The smallest wavelength used was 1.59 nm. We will give a summary of the experience from two years of user operation at FLASH.
DESY, Hamburg
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Elektronen-Speicherring BESSY II, Berlin
Uni HH, Hamburg
FLASH has been a user facility since 2005, delivering radiation in the wavelength range between 7 and 47 nm using the SASE principle. In order to increase user beam time and improve the radiation properties delivered to users, a major extension of the user facility called FLASH II has been proposed by DESY in collaboration with the HZB, which is a seeded FEL over the parameter range of FLASH. As logical continuation, the HHG development program started with sFLASH, will result in direct seeding. Because in the foreseeable future there will probably not be HHG seed lasers available at high repetition rates down to wavelengths of 4 nm, a cascaded HGHG scheme will be used to produce short wavelengths. After a first design report, the project now enters its preparation phase until the decision for funding will be taken. During this time, the FLASH beam parameters after the present upgrade 2009/2010 will be characterized and the present design will be re-evaluated and adjusted. In addition, complete start-to-end simulations will complete the simulations which have been performed so far, including a complete design of the extraction area.
DESY, Hamburg
Friedrich Schiller Universität, Jena
Uni HH, Hamburg
The performance of fourth generation light sources is of interest in many fields in nature science. Different seeding schemes for FELs are under investigation to improve timing stability, pulse shape and spectrum of the amplified XUV or X-ray pulses. One of the most promising schemes is direct seeding by high-harmonic generation (HHG) in gas. A seeded free electron laser with a tuneable wavelength range from 10 to 40nm and a bunch frequency of up to 100 kHz (1 MHz upgraded), as proposed for FLASH II (collaboration HZB/DESY), makes high demands on the HHG seed source concerning conversion efficiency and stability. However, the most challenging task is the conception of a laser system with a repetition rate of 100 kHz (1 MHz upgraded). The key parameters for this laser amplifier system are pulse energies of 1-2mJ and sub-10fs pulse duration. We report on the development status of the required laser system for the seed source and give an overview of first concepts for the HHG target setup which can comply with the requirements of a new seeded FEL at DESY.