High Gain Amplifiers: Power Oscillations and Harmonic Generation

We discuss the power oscillations in saturated high gain free electron laser amplifiers and show that the relevant period can be written in terms of the gain length. We use simple arguments following from the solution of the pendulum equation in terms of Jacobi elliptic functions. Nontrivial effects due to nonlinear harmonic generation and inhomogeneous broadening are discussed too, as well as the saturated dynamics of short pulses. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.