Research at modern light sources continues to improve our knowledge of the natural world, from the subtle workings of life to matter under extreme conditions. Free-electron lasers, for instance, have enabled the characterization of biomolecular structures with sub-ångström spatial resolution, and paved the way to controlling the molecular functions. On the other hand, attosecond temporal resolution is necessary to broaden our scope of the ultrafast world. Here we discuss attosecond pulse generation beyond present capabilities. Furthermore, we review three recently proposed methods of generating attosecond x-ray pulses. These novel methods exploit the coherent radiation of microbunched electrons in undulators and the tailoring of the emitted wavefronts. The computed pulse energy outperforms pre-existing technologies by three orders of magnitude. Specifically, our simulations of the proposed Soft X-Ray Laser (SXL) at MAX IV (Lund, Sweden) show that a pulse duration of 50-100 attoseconds and a pulse energy up to 5 microjoules is feasible with the novel methods. In addition, the methods feature pulse shape control, enable the incorporation of orbital angular momentum, and can be used in combination with modern compact free-electron laser setups.
Starting from the rigorous excitation equation, the propagation of waves through a 2D waveguide with the periodically corrugated finite-length insert is examined in detail. The corrugation profile is chosen to obey the property that its amplitude is small as compared to the waveguide width, whereas the sharpness of the asperities is arbitrarily large. With the aid of the method of mode separation, which was developed earlier for inhomogeneous-in-bulk waveguide systems [Waves Random Media 10, 395 (2000)], the corrugated segment of the waveguide is shown to serve as the effective scattering barrier whose width is coincident with the length of the insert and the average height is controlled by the sharpness of boundary asperities. Due to this barrier, the mode spectrum of the waveguide can be substantially rarefied and adjusted so as to reduce the number of extended modes to the value arbitrarily less than that in the absence of corrugation (up to zero), without changing considerably the waveguide average width.
Strong-field few-cycle terahertz (THz) pulses are an invaluable tool for engineering highly nonequilibrium states of matter. A scheme is proposed to generate quasi-half-cycle GV/m-scale THz pulses with a multikilohertz repetition rate. It makes use of coherent spontaneous emission from a prebunched electron beam traversing an optimally tapered undulator. The scheme is the further development of the slippage control in free-electron lasers [T. Tanaka, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 044801 (2015)]. An explicit condition for the spectral amplitude of undulator radiation and a phase condition for the electron density distribution, required for the generation of desired pulses, are presented. The amplitude condition is met by proper undulator tapering, and a generic optimal undulator profile is found analytically. In order to meet the phase condition, the distance between the adjacent bunches is varied according to the instantaneous resonant undulator wavelength. A 3D analytical theory is complemented by a detailed numerical study based on a direct solution to the 3D wave equation.
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