High-intensity double-pulse X-ray free-electron laser

The X-ray free-electron laser has opened a new era for photon science, improving the X-ray brightness by ten orders of magnitude over previously available sources. Similar to an optical laser, the spectral and temporal structure of the radiation pulses can be tailored to the specific needs of many experiments by accurately manipulating the lasing medium, that is, the electron beam. Here we report the generation of mJ-level two-colour hard X-ray pulses of few femtoseconds duration with an XFEL driven by twin electron bunches at the Linac Coherent Light Source. This performance represents an improvement of over an order of magnitude in peak power over state-of-the-art two-colour XFELs. The unprecedented intensity and temporal coherence of this new two-colour X-ray free-electron laser enable an entirely new set of scientific applications, ranging from X-ray pump/X-ray probe experiments to the imaging of complex biological samples with multiple wavelength anomalous dispersion.

[1]  Zhirong Huang,et al.  Purified self-amplified spontaneous emission free-electron lasers with slippage-boosted filtering , 2013 .

[2]  Yiping Feng,et al.  A single-shot transmissive spectrometer for hard x-ray free electron lasers , 2012 .

[3]  William E. White,et al.  Sub-femtosecond precision measurement of relative X-ray arrival time for free-electron lasers , 2014, Nature Photonics.

[4]  Georg Weidenspointner,et al.  Femtosecond X-ray protein nanocrystallography , 2011, Nature.

[5]  R. Lindberg,et al.  Demonstration of self-seeding in a hard-X-ray free-electron laser , 2012, Nature Photonics.

[6]  Claudio Pellegrini,et al.  Collective instabilities and high-gain regime in a free electron laser , 1984 .

[7]  Hitoshi Tanaka,et al.  Two-colour hard X-ray free-electron laser with wide tunability , 2013, Nature Communications.

[8]  R. Coffee,et al.  Achieving few-femtosecond time-sorting at hard X-ray free-electron lasers , 2013, Nature Photonics.

[9]  C. Pellegrini,et al.  GENERATION OF LONGITUDINALLY COHERENT ULTRA HIGH POWER X-RAY FEL PULSES BY PHASE AND AMPLITUDE MIXING* , 2012 .

[10]  J. Rosenzweig,et al.  Dielectric wakefield acceleration of a relativistic electron beam in a slab-symmetric dielectric lined waveguide. , 2012, Physical review letters.

[11]  J. Chalupský,et al.  Creation and diagnosis of a solid-density plasma with an X-ray free-electron laser , 2012, Nature.

[12]  P. Krejcik,et al.  Few-femtosecond time-resolved measurements of X-ray free-electron lasers , 2014, Nature Communications.

[13]  Simpson,et al.  Experimental observation of plasma wake-field acceleration. , 1988, Physical review letters.

[14]  G. White,et al.  High-efficiency acceleration of an electron beam in a plasma wakefield accelerator , 2014, Nature.

[15]  G. Penco,et al.  Two-colour pump–probe experiments with a twin-pulse-seed extreme ultraviolet free-electron laser , 2013, Nature Communications.

[16]  R. Coffee,et al.  Multicolor operation and spectral control in a gain-modulated x-ray free-electron laser. , 2013, Physical review letters.

[17]  Wayne A Hendrickson,et al.  [28] Phase determination from multiwavelength anomalous diffraction measurements. , 1997, Methods in enzymology.

[18]  D. Ratner,et al.  First lasing and operation of an ångstrom-wavelength free-electron laser , 2010 .

[19]  Comparative study of nonideal beam effects in high gain harmonic generation and self-seeded free electron lasers , 2010 .

[20]  Pellegrini,et al.  Spectrum, temporal structure, and fluctuations in a high-gain free-electron laser starting from noise. , 1994, Physical review letters.

[21]  T. Ishikawa,et al.  A compact X-ray free-electron laser emitting in the sub-ångström region , 2012, Nature Photonics.

[22]  Justin S. Wark,et al.  Plasma-based studies with intense X-ray and particle beam sources , 2002 .

[23]  A. Marinelli,et al.  Nonlinear longitudinal space charge oscillations in relativistic electron beams. , 2011, Physical review letters.

[24]  F. Decker,et al.  Demonstration of single-crystal self-seeded two-color x-ray free-electron lasers. , 2014, Physical review letters.

[25]  Wei Lu,et al.  Energy doubling of 42 GeV electrons in a metre-scale plasma wakefield accelerator , 2007, Nature.

[26]  Barbara Marchetti,et al.  Laser comb with velocity bunching: Preliminary results at SPARC , 2011 .

[27]  Ryszard S. Romaniuk,et al.  Operation of a free-electron laser from the extreme ultraviolet to the water window , 2007 .

[28]  William A. Barletta,et al.  Highly coherent and stable pulses from the FERMI seeded free-electron laser in the extreme ultraviolet , 2012, Nature Photonics.

[29]  A Mostacci,et al.  Observation of time-domain modulation of free-electron-laser pulses by multipeaked electron-energy spectrum. , 2013, Physical review letters.

[30]  Giulio Gaio,et al.  Two-stage seeded soft-X-ray free-electron laser , 2013, Nature Photonics.

[31]  Enrico Allaria,et al.  Chirped seeded free-electron lasers: self-standing light sources for two-color pump-probe experiments. , 2013, Physical review letters.

[32]  R. M. More,et al.  INTERACTION OF FEMTOSECOND LASER PULSES WITH ULTRATHIN FOILS , 1998 .

[33]  R. Coffee,et al.  Experimental demonstration of femtosecond two-color x-ray free-electron lasers. , 2013, Physical review letters.

[34]  B. McNeil,et al.  Transform-limited x-ray pulse generation from a high-brightness self-amplified spontaneous-emission free-electron laser. , 2012, Physical review letters.

[35]  Richard A. London,et al.  Atomic inner-shell X-ray laser at 1.46 nanometres pumped by an X-ray free-electron laser , 2012, Nature.