Seminars Archive

Design, fabrication and testing of the wakefield accelerator for future x-ray lasers

Abstract
Aiming for reduction of the footprint of future x-ray free electron lasers operating with a multi-kilohertz bunch repetition rate, we developed a concept of a compact corrugated waveguide-based wakefield accelerator where a 10 nC electron bunch is used to produce Čerenkov radiation capable of accelerating a following low charge electron bunch at a rate up to 100 MeV/m. The corrugated pipe has a 2 mm ID and is surrounded by quadrupoles responsible for stability of the high charge bunch. The 25 cm x 25 cm quadrupole’s cross section defines the space occupied by the wakefield accelerator. We designed and fabricated all components of a 0.5 m long accelerator module, and successfully tested them with an electron beam. As a natural companion to the compact size accelerator, we also designed a small period and small gap force neutral adjustable phase undulator fitting the cross section 15 cm x 15 cm. All results and all lessons learned from overcoming many challenging issues will be presented.