Two-color operation of a soft x-ray FEL with alternation of undulator tunes

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel two-color operation mode for a soft X-ray FEL using alternating undulator tunes, enabling more efficient dual-wavelength generation and improved beam focusing for user experiments.

Contribution

The authors developed and demonstrated a two-color FEL scheme with alternating undulator segments, enhancing beam proximity and amplification efficiency over previous methods.

Findings

Successful implementation of two-color operation with alternating undulator segments

Development of online intensity measurement techniques for dual wavelengths

Capability to measure spectral and temporal properties of two pulses simultaneously

Abstract

FLASH is the first soft X-ray FEL user facility, routinely providing brilliant photon beams for users since 2005. The second undulator branch of this facility, FLASH2, is gap-tunable which allows to test and use advanced lasing concepts. In particular, we developed a two-color operation mode based on the alternatingly tuned undulator segments (every other segment is tuned to the second wavelength). This scheme is advantageous in comparison with a subsequent generation of two colors in two consecutive sections of the undulator line. First, source positions of the two FEL beams are close to each other which makes it easier to focus them on a sample. Second, the amplification is more efficient in this configuration since the segments with respectively "wrong" wavelength still act as bunchers. We studied operation of this scheme in the regime of small and large separation of tunes (up to a factor of two). We developed new methods for online intensity measurements of the two colors simultaneously that require a combination of two detectors. We also demonstrated our capabilities to measure spectral and temporal properties of two pulses with different wavelengths.