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A new thermionic cathode has been developed and installed for use on the PEGASUS plane wave transformer injector. The novel design of the LaB6 cathode allows for thermionic emission as well as photoinjector operation. Both test-stand measurements and in situ operational experience are reported.

VISA (Visible to Infrared SASE Amplifier) is a high-gain self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) free-electron laser (FEL), which achieved saturation at 840 nm within a single-pass 4-m undulator. The experiment was performed at the Accelerator Test Facility at BNL, using a high brightness 70-MeV electron beam. A gain length shorter than 18 cm has been obtained, yielding a total gain of $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{8}$ at saturation. The FEL performance, including the spectral, angular, and statistical properties of SASE radiation, has been characterized for different electron beam conditions. Results are compared to the three-dimensional SASE FEL theory and start-to-end numerical simulations of the entire injector, transport, and FEL systems. An agreement between simulations and experimental results has been obtained at an unprecedented level of detail.

We present a setup based on the optical klystron concept, consisting of two undulator modules separated by a magnetic chicane, that addresses two issues in free-electron-laser (FEL) facilities. On the one hand, it allows increasing the intrinsic energy spread of the beam at the source, which is useful to counteract the harmful microbunching instability. This represents an alternative method to the more conventional laser heater with the main advantage that no laser system is required. On the other hand, the setup can be used to reconstruct the initial beam energy spread, whose typical values in FEL injectors around 1 keV are very difficult to measure with standard procedures.

The PEGASUS laboratory is a versatile radiation facility dedicated to the advancement of novel concepts in beam physics. The installation of a new LaB/sub 6/ cathode will allow for both thermionic emission and photoinjection operation. The PEGASUS plane wave transformer injector has been conditioned to 20 MW of RF power. Recent operations show a 15 MeV dark current beam that will be used for beam radiation studies. An upgrade to the drive laser system has been explored and will be realized shortly. This paper will describe and report the status of the various sub-systems of the PEGASUS laboratory and outline the experiments underway, such as innovative beam instrumentation, surface effects in optical transition radiation, Thomson scattering, and waveguide SASE FEL.

A method for generating femtosecond duration X-ray pulses using a single-pass free-electron laser (FEL) is presented. This method uses an energy-chirped electron beam propagating through an undulator to produce a frequency-chirped X-ray pulse through self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE). After the undulator, we consider passing the radiation through a monochromator. The frequency is correlated to the longitudinal position within the pulse; therefore, by selecting a narrow bandwidth, a short temporal pulse will be transmitted. The short pulse radiation is used to seed a second undulator, where the radiation is amplified to saturation. In addition to short pulse generation, this scheme has the ability to control shot-to-shot fluctuations in the central wavelength due to electron beam energy jitter. We present calculations of the radiation characteristics produced by a chirped-beam two-stage SASE–FEL, and consider the performance of the chirped-beam two-stage option for the Linac Coherent Light Source.

In order to monitor the photon-beam position for both diagnostics and calibration purposes, we have investigated the possibility to use InGaAs/InAlAs Quantum Well (QW) devices as position-sensitive photon detectors for Free-Electron Laser (FEL) or Synchrotron Radiation (SR). Owing to their direct, low-energy band gap and high electron mobility, such QW devices may be used also at Room Temperature (RT) as fast multi-band sensors for photons ranging from visible light to hard X-rays. Moreover, internal charge-amplification mechanism can be applied for very low signal levels, while the high carrier mobility allows the design of very fast photon detectors with sub-nanosecond response times. Segmented QW sensors have been preliminary tested with 100-fs-wide 400 nm laser pulses and X-ray SR. The reported results indicate that these devices respond with 100 ps rise-times to such ultra-fast laser pulses. Besides, linear scan on the back-pixelated device has shown that these detectors are sensitive to the position of each ultrashort beam bunch.