Generation of ultrashort radiation pulses by injection locking a regenerative free-electron-laser amplifier
نویسندگان
چکیده
We demonstrate how a steady-state train of ultrashort radiation pulses can be produced utilizing a new free-electron laser ~FEL! configuration, the injection-locked regenerative klystron amplifier ~IRKA!. This configuration consists of two elements: ~1! a prebuncher, which microbunches the electron beams at the desired output wavelength, and ~2! a multipass FEL operated at a very small cavity desynchronism and below the lasing threshold, in the regime of regenerative amplification. The regenerative amplifier is driven by the microbunched electron beam, so that the pulse-to-pulse stability is provided by the pre-buncher. The broad amplification bandwidth of this regenerative amplifier enables generation of ultrashort pulses, much shorter than a slippage length, with high efficiency. The IRKA configuration can produce such ultra-short radiation pulses while avoiding the chaotic dynamics that limits conventional FEL performance. @S1063-651X~97!12609-5#
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