Conceptual Design for a 1-GeV IFEL Accelerator

A conceptual design for a multistaged 1-GeV IFEL laser-driven accelerator (laser linac) was developed using the Staged Electron Laser Acceleration (STELLA) inverse free electron laser (IFEL) model created at STI Optronics. A comparison with the UCLA TREDI model yields good agreement with the STELLA model. The 1-GeV IFEL laser linac consists of an IFEL buncher for forming microbunches and four IFEL acceleration stages. Electrons enter the laser linac from a conventional microwave-driven linac (51 MeV). The acceleration stages are driven by 10-TW laser beams at 1.06-μm. It is found good trapping occurs as the electrons are accelerated; however, refocusing of the e-beam between acceleration stages is needed to control detrapping effects. The energy spread of the trapped electrons is also small. This design exercise was in support of the task placed upon the EM Structure-Based Accelerators Working Group at the 2004 Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop. It demonstrates that a 1-GeV IFEL laser linac is feasible with present technology.