Free Electron Lasers using `Beam by Design'

TL;DR

This paper introduces two novel 'beam by design' methods using advanced undulators and beam elements to significantly enhance Free Electron Laser output, especially for electron pulses with large energy spreads, based on simulation results.

Contribution

It presents two new techniques employing beam shaping and novel undulators to improve FEL performance with large energy spread electron pulses.

Findings

Simulations show orders of magnitude increase in output power.

Methods are effective for large energy spread electron pulses.

Potential to extend FEL operating capabilities.

Abstract

Several methods have been proposed in the literature to improve Free Electron Laser output by transforming the electron phase-space before entering the FEL interaction region. By utilising `beam by design' with novel undulators and other beam changing elements, the operating capability of FELs may be further usefully extended. This paper introduces two new such methods to improve output from electron pulses with large energy spreads and the results of simulations of these methods in the 1D limit are presented. Both methods predict orders of magnitude improvements to output radiation powers.