• C. Sung, C. Joshi, C. Pellegrini, J.E. Ralph, S. Reiche, J.B. Rosenzweig, S. Tochitsky
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California

The lack of a high-power, relatively low-cost and compact terahertz (THz) source in the range 0.3-3x10(12) Hz is the major obstacle in progressing on biomedical and material studies at these wavelengths. A high-gain, single pass seeded FEL technique allows to obtain high power THz pulses of a high spectral brightness. We describe an ongoing project at the Neptune laboratory where a ~ 1kW seed pulse generated by difference frequency mixing of CO2 laser lines in a GaAs nonlinear crystal is injected into a waveguide FEL amplifier. The FEL is driven by a 5 ps (r.m.s) long electron pulse with a peak current up to 100A provided by a regular S-band photoinjector. According to 3-D, time dependent simulations, up to ~ 10 MW THz power can be generated using a 2 meter long planar undulator. By mixing different pairs of CO2 laser lines and matching resonant energy of the electron beam, tunability in the 100-400 mm range is expected. A tunable Fabri-Perot interferometer will be used to select a high-power 5ps THz pulse. This pulse is synchronized both with 1mm (photoinjector driver) and 10 mm lasers allowing time resolved pump-probe measurements.

• O. Williams, A. Doyuran, R.J. England, C. Joshi, J. Lim, J.B. Rosenzweig, S. Tochitsky, G. Travish
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California

An Inverse Compton Scattering (ICS) experiment investigating the polarized harmonic production in the nonlinear regime has begun which will utilize the existing terawatt CO2 laser system and 15 MeV photoinjector in the Neptune Laboratory at UCLA. A major motivation for a source of high brightness polarized x-rays is the production of polarized positrons for use in future linear collider experiments. Analytical calculations have been performed to predict the angular and frequency spectrums for various polarizations and different scattering angles. Currently, the experiment is running and we report the set-up and initial results. The advantages and limitations of using a high laser vector potential, ao, in an ICS-based polarized positron source are expected to be revealed with further measurement of the harmonic spectrum and angular characteristics.

• S. Reiche, C. Joshi, C. Pellegrini, J.B. Rosenzweig, S. Tochitsky
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California
• G. Shvets
  The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

Funding: The work was supported by the DOE Contract No. DE-FG03-92ER40727.

Free-Electron Laser in the THz range can be used to generate high output power radiation or to modulate the electron beam longitudinally on the radiation wavelength scale. Microbunching on the scale of 1-5 THz is of particular importance for potential phase-locking of a modulated electron beam to a laser-driven plasma accelerating structure. However the lack of a seeding source for the FEL at this spectral range limits operation to a SASE FEL only, which denies a subpicosecond synchronization of the current modulation or radiation with an external laser source. One possibility to overcome this problem is to seed the FEL with two external laser beams, which difference (beatwave) frequency is matched to the resonant FEL frequency in the THz range. In this presentation we study feasibility of an experiment on laser beat-wave injection in the THz FEL considered at the UCLA Neptune Laboratory, where both a high brightness photoinjector and a two-wavelength, TW-class CO₂ laser system exist. By incorporating the energy modulation of the electron beam by the ponderomotive force of the beat-wave in a modified version of the time-dependent FEL code Genesis 1.3, the performance of a FEL at Neptune is simulated and analyzed.