Significant improvements in the performances of the Super-ACO storage ring free-electron laser (FEL) at 800 MeV have been obtained recently: enhancement of the output power in the ultraviolet, laser duration of 10 h for the same injection of positrons, long-term stability with a micropulse of 60 ps FWHM. A first series of experiments using this FEL has then been successfully performed. Taking advantage of the time structure, the polarization and the high power of the source at 350 nm, the polarized fluorescence decays of the reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide coenzyme (NADH) were studied in aqueous solution, using the single-photon counting (SPC) technique. The experimental setup is described, including the Super-ACO FEL characteristics and diagnostics. The FEL working point has been first optimized by monitoring the SPC apparatus function. A complete fluorescence experiment required about 30 min of data acquisition, during which the best integrated instrumental response had a FWHM of 110 ps. Measurements performed in such a way lead to the unambiguous separation of two close lifetime components of 0.28 and 0.62 ns in the fluorescence decays of NADH at 20 °C, in good agreement with previous works. The thermodynamic parameters obtained from temperature studies show that the NADH fluorescence heterogeneity is consistent with the ground-state folding equilibrium of the coenzyme, as characterized by many other spectroscopic techniques. From the fluorescence anisotropy decays, an apparent hydrodynamic radius of about 6 Å is determined, while on the other hand, a large initial depolarization of the fluorescence indicates a fast independent motion of the nicotinamide ring. The quality of the collected data fully meets the requirements for the study of more complex systems such as fluorescent compounds bound to proteins or membranes. Thus, the feasibility of use of a storage ring UV FEL for this type of time-resolved experiments on the subnanosecond time scale has been demonstrated.

The 13th harmonic of a Ti:sapphire (Ti:S) laser in the plateau region was injected as a seeding source to a 250-MeV free-electron-laser (FEL) amplifier. When the amplification conditions were fulfilled, strong enhancement of the radiation intensity by a factor of 650 was observed. The random and uncontrollable spikes, which appeared in the spectra of the Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission (SASE) based FEL radiation without the seeding source, were found to be suppressed drastically to form to a narrow-band, single peak profile at 61.2 nm. The properties of the seeded FEL radiation were well reproduced by numerical simulations. We discuss the future precept of the seeded FEL scheme to the shorter wavelength region.

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We report the first experimental implementation of a method based on simultaneous use of an energy chirp in the electron beam and a tapered undulator, for the generation of ultrashort pulses in a selfamplified spontaneous emission mode free-electron laser (SASE FEL). The experiment, performed at the SPARC FEL test facility, demonstrates the possibility of compensating the nominally detrimental effect of the chirp by a proper taper of the undulator gaps. An increase of more than 1 order of magnitude in the pulse energy is observed in comparison to the untapered case, accompanied by FEL spectra where the typical SASE spiking is suppressed.

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X-ray free electron lasers (FELs), which amplify light emitted by a relativistic electron beam, are extending nonlinear optical techniques to shorter wavelengths, adding element specificity by exciting and probing electronic transitions from core levels. These techniques would benefit tremendously from having a stable FEL source, generating spectrally pure and wavelength-tunable pulses. We show that such requirements can be met by operating the FEL in the so-called echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG) configuration. Here, two external conventional lasers are used to precisely tailor the longitudinal phase space of the electron beam before emission of X-rays. We demonstrate high-gain EEHG lasing producing stable, intense, nearly fully coherent pulses at wavelengths as short as 5.9 nm (~211 eV) at the FERMI FEL user facility. Low sensitivity to electron-beam imperfections and observation of stable, narrow-band, coherent emission down to 2.6 nm (~474 eV) make the technique a prime candidate for generating laser-like pulses in the X-ray spectral region, opening the door to multidimensional coherent spectroscopies at short wavelengths.

We report measurements demonstrating the concept of the free-electron laser (FEL) superradiant cascade. Radiation ( rad ¼ 200 nm) at the second harmonic of a short, intense seed laser pulse ( seed ¼ 400 nm) was generated by the cascaded FEL scheme at the transition between the modulator and radiator undulator sections. The superradiance of the ultrashort pulse is confirmed by detailed measurements of the resulting spectral structure, the intensity level of the produced harmonics, and the trend of the energy growth along the undulator. These results are compared to numerical particle simulations using the FEL code GENESIS 1.3 and show a satisfactory agreement. Fourth generation light sources open the way towards the exploration of molecular and atomic phenomena, yielding unprecedented benefits to a wide range of scientific disciplines [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Free-electron lasers (FELs), operating in self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) mode, have demonstrated the capability of reaching the subnanometer wavelength range at the femtosecond time scale [7,8]. The multielectron dynamics in atoms and molecules involved in chemical transformation processes evolves on a femtoto attosecond time domain. Thus, ultrashort pulses in the XUV spectral range are the potential tool to control and map the collective electronic and nuclei rearrangements. In a SASE FEL the generation of radiation is due to the passage of a relativistic electron beam through the periodic magnetic field of an undulator with maximum field amplitude B u and period u , inducing emission at a resonant2 (linear undulator) and its higher order harmonics, where is the Lorentz factor of the electrons and K ¼ eB u u =ð2m e cÞ the deflection parameter of the undulator. At the onset of saturation, the electrons emit coherently [9] over a characteristic frequency bandwidth Á!=! $ , where is the Pierce parameter [10,11]. Considering that typical values of the Pierce parameter range from 10 À3 to 10 À4 , the associated FWHM pulse length at the Fourier limit is ¼ 2 ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ffi 2 lnð2Þ p L c =c, where L c ¼ rad =4 is known as cooperation length and, at rad ¼ 1 nm, assumes values in the range c $ 0:6-6 fs. When the electron bunch is longer than L c , several independent processes of SASE amplification can occur, leading to a pulse structure far from the Fourier limit and composed of a number of independent spikes [12]. A selective amplification of only one of these spikes has been demonstrated by shaping the electron beam phase space, in order to enable the field growth only in a limited portion of the bunch [13,14]. A single mode may also be generated by seeding the FEL amplifier with an external source. Seeding with a pulse shorter than c results in a spike of rms duration given by the cooperation length, at the onset of saturation when P sat % P beam (P beam is the electron beam power). Pulses shorter than the cooperation length may still be obtained at intensities higher than the saturation level, when the FEL emits in the superra...

High gradient quadrupoles are necessary for different applications such as laser plasma acceleration, colliders, and diffraction limited light sources. Permanent magnet quadrupoles provide a higher field strength and compactness than conventional electro-magnets. An original design of permanent magnet based quadrupole (so-called "QUAPEVA"), composed of a Halbach ring placed in the center with a bore radius of 6 mm and surrounded by four permanent magnet cylinders capable of providing a gradient of 210 T/m, is presented. The design of the QUAPEVAs, including magnetic simulation modeling, and mechanical issues are reported. Magnetic measurements of seven systems of different lengths are presented and confirmed the theoretical expectations. The variation of the magnetic center while changing the gradient strength is +/- 10 micrometer. A triplet of three QUAPEVA magnets are used to focus a beam with large energy spread and high divergence that is generated by Laser Plasma Acceleration source for a free electron laser demonstration.Comment: 4 pages, 9 figure