How to bring optical free-electrons lasers to table-top with Traveling-wave Thomson scattering

Optical FELs (OFELs) based on Traveling-wave Thomson scattering (TWTS) optimally exploit the high spectral photon density in high-power laser pulses by spatially stretching the laser pulse and overlapping it with the electrons in a side scattering setup. The introduction of a laser pulse-front tilt provides for interaction lengths appropriate for FEL operation. With careful dispersion control, electrons witness an undulator field of almost constant strength and wavelength over hundreds to thousands of undulator periods, thus giving enough time for self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) to seed the FEL instability and the realization of large laser gains.

The TWTS OFEL provides undulator wavelengths on the order of the laser wavelength, sub-meter gain lengths and optimum conditions for optical synchronization. The TWTS OFEL has several advantages over other compact FEL concepts, as it neither requires electron beam focusing nor material for producing or containing the undulator field in the interaction region.

Here, we emphasize similarities and differences of TWTS-OFELs to conventional SASE-FELs and discuss possible experimental scenarios with respect to challenges for high-power lasers and LWFA or RF-driven electron beam sources. Since TWTS-OFELs are highly scalable and tunable from EUV to hard X-rays in very different interaction configurations, we compare these different regimes including their experimental trade-offs.