First Lasing of the IR FEL at the Fritz-Haber-Institut Berlin

An IR and THz FEL with a design wavelength range from 4 to 500 µm has been commissioned at the Fritz-Haber-Institut (FHI) in Berlin, Germany, for applications in, i.a., molecular and cluster spectroscopy as well as surface science. The linac comprises two S-band standingwave copper structures. The first one operates at near fixed field to accelerate the electrons to 20 MeV, while the second one is designed to accelerate (or decelerate) to any final energy between 15 and 50 MeV. A key aspect of the system is low longitudinal emittance, < 50 keVpsec, at more than 200 pC bunch charge with a max. micro pulse rep. rate of 1 GHz. The up to 15 µs long macro pulses come at a rate of up to 20 Hz. The electrons are steered through either one of two FELs. A single-plane-focusing, 40 mm period hybrid magnet undulator combined with a 5.4 m long cavity has been commissioned for the mid-IR (< 50 µm). In addition, a two-plane- focusing undulator in combination with a 7.2 m long cavity with a 1-d waveguide for the optical mode is planned for the far-IR. In February 2012 we observed 'first lasing' at 28 MeV
and a wavelength of 18 µm. We will present first results characterizing the system.