corner
corner

Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 10, 034801 (2007) [26 pages]

Review of x-ray free-electron laser theory

Download: PDF (1,060 kB), One-column PDF (1,059 kB) Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Zhirong Huang
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford, California 94309, USA

Kwang-Je Kim
Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA

Received 25 August 2006; published 12 March 2007

High-gain free-electron lasers (FELs) are being developed as extremely bright sources for a next-generation x-ray facility. In this paper, we review the basic theory of the start-up, the exponential growth, and the saturation of the high-gain process, emphasizing the self-amplified spontaneous emission. The radiation characteristics of an x-ray FEL, including its transverse coherence, temporal characteristics, and harmonic content, are discussed. FEL performance in the presence of machine errors and undulator wakefields is examined. Various enhancement schemes through seeding and beam manipulations are summarized.

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.10.034801
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.10.034801
PACS:
41.60.Cr