Stable Multi-Day Performance of a Laser Wakefield Accelerator for FEL Applications


Stable Multi-Day Performance of a Laser Wakefield Accelerator for FEL Applications

Couperus Cabadağ, J. P.; Bock, S.; Chang, Y.-Y.; Debus, A.; Gebhardt, R.; Ghaith, A.; Helbig, U.; Irman, A.; Köhler, A.; Laberge, M.; Pausch, R.; Püschel, T.; Schramm, U.; Schöbel, S.; Steiniger, K.; Ufer, P.; Zarini, O.; Roussel, E.; Couprie, M.- . E.; Labat, M.; Downer, M. C.

We report on the operation of the DRACO Laser Driven electron source for stable multi-day operation for Free Electron Laser (FEL) applications. The nC-class accelerator can deliver charge densities around 10 pC/MeV , <1 mrad rms divergence at energies up to 0.5 GeV and peak currents of over 10 kA*.
Precise characterisation is paramount for controlled operation, including: spectrally resolved charge diagnostic, coherent optical transition radiation (TR) to resolve microbunch beam structures** and TR-based multioctave high-dynamic range spectrometry for sub-fs resolved characterisation of the 10 fs rms electron bunches***. Achieved stability allows for systematic exploration of demanding applications, resulting in the recent demonstration of the first LWFA based Beam-driven Plasma Wakefield Accelerator (LPWFA)****.
Fulfilling the high demands required for FEL operation, the COXINEL manipulation line***** developed at Synchotron SOLEIL has recently been installed at our facility. Based on successful beam transport of over 13000 shots within 9 experimental days during commissioning, we were able to demonstrate the very first operation of a seeded FEL driven by a laser plasma accelerator******.

* J.P. Couperus et al., Nat. Comm. 8 (2017)
** O. Zarini et al., PRAB (2022)
*** A. Lumpkin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 125, 014801 (2020)
**** T. Kurz, T. Heinemann et al., Nature Commun., 12, 2895 (2021)
***** M.-E. Couprie et al., J. Phys B, 47, 234001 (2014) & M.-E. Couprie et al., PPCF, 58, 034020 (2016)
****** M. Labat et al., in review, (2022), doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-1692828/v1

Keywords: FEL; LWFA

  • Poster
    FEL conference Trieste (FEL2022), 22.-26.08.2022, Trieste, Italy

Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-35045
Publ.-Id: 35045