Application of a modified chirp-taper scheme for generation of attosecond pulses in XUV and soft X-ray FELs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a modified chirp-taper scheme that overcomes the coherence time barrier in SASE FELs, enabling the generation of hundreds of attosecond pulses in the XUV and soft X-ray range with high peak power.

Contribution

A novel modification of the chirp-taper scheme is developed to produce ultrashort attosecond pulses in FELs beyond the coherence time limit.

Findings

Generation of 100-200 attosecond pulses demonstrated

Peak power of hundreds of megawatts achieved

Applicable to XUV and soft X-ray FELs in the 2-10 nm range

Abstract

Typically, in Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission Free Electron Laser (SASE FEL) based short-pulse schemes, pulse duration is limited by FEL coherence time. For hard X-ray FELs, coherence time is in a few hundred attosecond range while for XUV and soft X-ray FELs it is in the femtosecond regime. In this paper the modification of so-called chirp-taper scheme is developed that allows to overcome the coherence time barrier. Numerical simulations for XUV and soft X-ray FEL user facility FLASH demonstrate that one can generate a few hundred attosecond long pulses in the wavelength range 2 - 10 nm with peak power reaching hundreds of megawatts. With several thousand pulses per second this can be a unique source for attosecond science.