• N. Sugimoto, G. Isoyama, R. Kato, S. Suemine, A. Tokuchi
  ISIR, Osaka
• S. Kashiwagi
  Tohoku University, Research Center for Electron Photon Science, Sendai

We are conducting FEL experiments with the L band electron linac at Osaka University. The linac is equipped with a thermionic electron gun and the three-stage sub-harmonic buncher(SHB) system. In FEL experiments an 8μs long electron pulse is injected from the gun and the SHB system is turned on for generating a multi-bunch electron beam of an 8μs duration with 2nC charge per bunch and 9.2 ns intervals between bunches. It repeatedly amplifies light pulses stored in the optical resonator of the FEL. The roundtrip time of the light pulses is 37 ns, so that four light pulses are stored in the resonator. The FEL gain becomes higher at least in proportion to the peak current in the bunch or charge per bunch. The present charge value is limited by the high beam loading in the acceleration tube of the linac, exceeding a half of the input RF power. If the bunch intervals can be extended to 37 ns, the charge per punch can be made four times higher for the same beam loading, resulting in significant increase of the FEL gain. To generate such an electron beam, we are developing the electron gun system with a high-repetition-rate grid-pulser. We will report the outline of the study.