The stanford picosecond FEL center

The TESLA Test Facility (TTF) at DESY is a facility producing sub-picosecond electron pulses for the generation of VUV or soft X-ray radiation in a free electron laser (FEL). The same electron pulses would also allow the direct production of high-power coherent radiation by passing the electron beam through an undulator. Intense, coherent far-infrared (FIR) undulator radiation can be produced from electron bunches at wavelengths longer than or equal to the bunch length. The source described in this paper provides, in the wavelength range 50–300μm, a train of about 1–10ps long radiation pulses, with about 1mJ of optical energy per pulse radiated into the central cone. The average output power can exceed 50W. In this conceptual design, we intend to use a conventional electromagnetic undulator with a 60cm period length and a maximum field of 1.5T. The FIR source will use the spent electron beam coming from the VUV FEL which allows one to significantly extend the scientific potential of the TTF without interfering with the main option of the TTF FEL operation. The pulses of the coherent FIR radiation are naturally synchronized with the VUV pulses from the main TTF FEL, enabling pump-probe techniques using either the FEL pulse as a pump or the FIR pulse as a probe, or vice versa.