Speaker
Description
Arizona State University (ASU) is pursuing a concept for
a compact x-ray FEL (CXFEL) that uses nanopatterning
of the electron beam via electron diffraction and emittance
exchange to enable fully coherent x-ray output from electron
beams with an energy of a few tens of MeV. This low energy
is enabled by nanobunching and use of a short pulse laser
field as an undulator, resulting in an XFEL with 10 m total
length and modest cost. The method of electron bunching is
deterministic and flexible, rather than dependent on SASE
amplification, so that the x-ray output is coherent in time and
frequency. The phase of the x-ray pulse can be controlled
and manipulated so that new opportunities for ultrafast x-ray
science are enabled using attosecond pulses, very narrow line
widths, or extremely precise timing among multiple pulses
with different colors. These properties may be transferred
to large XFELs through seeding with the CXFEL beam.
Construction of the CXFEL accelerator and laboratory are
underway, along with initial experiments to demonstrate
nanopatterning via electron diffraction. An overview of the
methods and project are presented.
