Status of the FEL Test Facility at MAX-lab

An FEL test facility is built on the existing MAX-lab linac system in collaboration between MAX-lab and BESSY. The goal is to study and analyse seeding, harmonic generation, beam compression and diagnostic techniques with the focus of gaining knowledge and experience for the MAX IV FEL and the BESSY FEL projects. The test facility will in the first stage be using the 400 MeV linac beam to generate the third harmonic at 88 nm from a 266 nm Ti:Sapphire seed laser. The optical klystron is installed and magnetic system, gun and seed laser systems are currently being finalised. Start-to-end simulations have been performed and operation modes for bunch compression defined. The linac and beam transport system is already in operation.