The Free Electron Laser Klystron Amplifier Concept

Abstract

The simplest high gain free electron laser (FEL) amplifier concept is proposed. A klystron amplifier has the useful property that the various electronic processes take place in separate portions of the amplifier, rather than overlapping as in FEL amplifier with an uniform undulator. The klystron consists of two fundamental parts: succession of 2-3 cascades (modulator), and an output undulator (radiator) in which the modulated electron beam coherently radiates. Each cascade consists of uniform undulator and dispersion section. Unlike distributed optical klystrons, we have a high gain per cascade pass. This has a few consequences. First, klystron gain does not depend on the bunch compression in the injector linac, i.e. maximum gain per cascade pass at high peak beam current is the same as at low peak beam current, without compression. Conventional, short-wavelength FEL amplifier and distributed optical klystron require electron beam peak current of a few kA. Second, there are no requirements on the alignment of the cascade undulators and dispersion sections, because, in our (high gain) case, there is no need for radiation phase matching. There are applications, like XFELs, where the unique properties of high gain klystron FEL amplifier are very desirable. Such a scheme allows one to decrease the total length of the magnetic system. In this paper we discuss also implementation of the proposed SASE FEL scheme for the frequency multiplier, for femtosecond experiments, and multi-user soft X-ray facility.