ELETTRA, Basovizza
B.I. Stepanov Institute of Physics, Belarus
Funding: The work was supported in part by the Italian Ministry of University and Research under grant FIRB-RBAP045JF2
Particle accelerator and laser technologies are effectively combining with each other in the development of next generation light sources, with the latter being one of the key factors determining the ultimate performance of these machines. VUV and X-FEL facilities take advantage of laser technology at many strategic points: creation of the electron bunch (photo-injector laser), acceleration (laser heater), undulators (seed laser), beam diagnostics (electro-optic sampling lasers), user experiments (pump-probe lasers). The talk will discuss the main requirements and challenges (photoinjector and seed lasers in particular) for the laser systems and will illustrate proposed solutions and obtained results. Recent laser achievements that are likely to have impact on important developments like high average power injectors, different guns,tunable short wavelength FEL seeding will also be addressed.
