We proposed a simple method based on the seeded free-electron laser (FEL) to generate fully coherent X-ray pulses with durations at dozens of attosecond level. The echo-enabled harmonic generation technique is utilized to generate the fully coherent laser pulse covering the water-window range. A wavefront rotation laser is adopted as the seed to tailor the longitudinal contour of the radiation pulse. Due to the sensitivity of seeded FEL to external lasers, this method can effectively inhibit the bunching of the adjacent regions while preserving an isolated bunching in the middle. Sending such an electron beam into a short undulator, simulation results show that ultrashort X-ray pulses with peak power of GW level and pulse duration as short as 86 attoseconds can be generated. The proposed scheme can make it possible to study the electronic dynamic of the valence electrons of which the time scale is about 100 attoseconds and may open up a new frontier of ultrafast science.
In this Letter, we propose a novel, to the best of our knowledge, technique to generate short-wavelength radiation carrying time-varying orbital angular momentum (OAM) by tailoring relativistic beams in free-electron lasers. To manipulate the temporal properties of OAM beams, two time-delayed seed lasers with different OAM values are used to interact with the electron beam in the undulator. With this method, high-harmonic electron beam microbunching with a time-varying helical distribution can be tailored to match the time-varying instantaneous helical phase structure of the x ray beams. Theoretical and simulation results demonstrate that high-power x ray beams with time-varying OAM can be produced by the proposed technique, which opens new routes to scientific research in x ray science.
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