• S. Khan
  DELTA, Dortmund

DELTA is a 1.5-GeV synchrotron radiation source at the TU Dortmund University (Germany) comprising a superconducting wiggler and a storage-ring FEL. Among other activities, it is planned to generate ultrashort and coherent VUV pulses by seeding the FEL in an optical-clystron configuration with femtosecond laser pulses and by producing higher harmonics. In addition to enabling laser-pump/VUV-probe experiments in material sciences with unprecedented time resolution, the seeding process gives rise to coherent and short radiation pulses in the THz regime. The paper reviews the status of DELTA and describes its new projects.

• J. Bödewadt, A. Azima, F. Curbis, H. Delsim-Hashemi, M. Drescher, Th. Maltezopoulos, V. Miltchev, M. Mittenzwey, J. Roßbach, S. Schulz, R. Tarkeshian, M. Wieland
  Uni HH, Hamburg
• S. Düsterer, J. Feldhaus, T. Laarmann, H. Schlarb
  DESY, Hamburg
• R. Ischebeck
  PSI, Villigen
• S. Khan
  DELTA, Dortmund
• A. Meseck
  BESSY GmbH, Berlin

Funding: This work is supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung under contract 05 ES7GU1

A seeded free-electron laser operating in the soft X-ray (XUV) spectral range will be added to the SASE FEL facility FLASH. For this purpose, a 40 m long section upstream of the existing SASE undulator will be rebuilt during the shutdown in fall 2009. This includes the injection of the seed beam into a new 10 m variable-gap undulator, the out-coupling of the seeded FEL radiation and all diagnostics for photon- and electron beams. The XUV seed pulse is generated by high harmonics (HHG) from a near-infrared laser, optically synchronized with FLASH. After amplification within the undulators the XUV light will be guided towards diagnostic stations. Besides a proof-of-principle demonstration for seeding at short wavelength the purpose of this development is to provide future pump-probe experiments with a more stable FEL source in terms of spectral properties and timing.