A compact and cost-effective hard X-ray free-electron laser driven by a high-brightness and low-energy electron beam

• DOI: 10.1038/s41566-020-00712-8
• Publication Date: 2020-11-09T17:05:16Z
• Authors: Eduard Prat; Rafael Abela; Masamitsu Aiba; Arturo Alarcon; Jürgen Alex; Yunieski Arbelo; Christopher Arrell; Vladimir Arsov; Camila Bacellar; Carl Beard; Paul Beaud; Simona Bettoni; Roger Biffiger; Markus Bopp; Hans-Heinrich Braun; Marco Calvi; Ariana Cassar; Tine Celcer; Majed Chergui; Pavel Chevtsov; Claudio Cirelli; Alessandro Citterio; Paolo Craievich; Marta Csatari Divall; Andreas Dax; Micha Dehler; Yunpei Deng; Alexander Dietrich; Philipp Dijkstal; Roberto Dinapoli; Sladana Dordevic; Simon Ebner; Daniel Engeler; Christian Erny; Vincent Esposito; Eugenio Ferrari; Uwe Flechsig; Rolf Follath; Franziska Frei; Romain Ganter; Terence Garvey; Zheqiao Geng; Alexandre Gobbo; Christopher Gough; Andreas Hauff; Christoph P. Hauri; Nicole Hiller; Stephan Hunziker; Martin Huppert; Gerhard Ingold; Rasmus Ischebeck; Markus Janousch; Philip J. M. Johnson; Steven L. Johnson; Pavle Juranić; Mario Jurcevic; Maik Kaiser; Roger Kalt; Boris Keil; Daniela Kiselev; Christoph Kittel; Gregor Knopp; Waldemar Koprek; Michael Laznovsky; Henrik T. Lemke; Daniel Llorente S...; Florian Löhl; Alexander Malyzhe...; Giulia Fulvia Man...; Roman Mankowsky; Fabio Marcellini; Goran Marinkovic; Isabelle Martiel; Fabian Märki; Christopher J. Milne; Aldo Mozzanica; Karol Nass; Gian Luca Orlandi; Cigdem Ozkan Loch; Martin Paraliev; Bruce Patterson; Luc Patthey; Bill Pedrini; Marco Pedrozzi; Claude Pradervand; Peter Radi; Jean-Yves Raguin; Sophie Redford; Jens Rehanek; Sven Reiche; Leonid Rivkin; Albert Romann; Leonardo Sala; Mathias Sander; Thomas Schietinger; Thomas Schilcher; Volker Schlott; Thomas Schmidt; Mike Seidel; Markus Stadler; Lukas Stingelin; Cristian Svetina; Daniel M. Treyer; Alexandre Trisorio; Carlo Vicario; Didier Voulot; Albin Wrulich; Serhane Zerdane; Elke Zimoch
• Keywords: Free-electron laser

We present the first lasing results of SwissFEL, a hard X-ray free-electron laser (FEL) that recently came into operation at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. SwissFEL is a very stable, compact and cost-effective X-ray FEL facility driven by a low-energy and ultra-low-emittance electron beam travelling through short-period undulators. It delivers stable hard X-ray FEL radiation at 1-A wavelength with pulse energies of more than 500 μJ, pulse durations of ~30 fs (root mean square) and spectral bandwidth below the per-mil level. Using special configurations, we have produced pulses shorter than 1 fs and, in a different set-up, broadband radiation with an unprecedented bandwidth of ~2%. The extremely small emittance demonstrated at SwissFEL paves the way for even more compact and affordable hard X-ray FELs, potentially boosting the number of facilities worldwide and thereby expanding the population of the scientific community that has access to X-ray FEL radiation. The first lasing results at SwissFEL, an X-ray free-electron laser, are presented, highlighting the facility’s unique capabilities. A general comparison to other major facilities is also provided.