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We achieved stable operation of a free-electron laser (FEL) based on the self-amplified spontaneous-emission (SASE) scheme at the SPring-8 Compact SASE Source (SCSS) test accelerator in the extremely ultraviolet region. Saturation of the SASE FEL power has been achieved at wavelengths ranging from 50 to 60 nm. The pulse energy has reached $\ensuremath{\sim}30\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{J}$ at 60 nm. The observed fluctuation of the pulse energy is about 10% (standard deviation) for several hours, which agrees with the expectation from the SASE theory showing the stable operation of the accelerator. The SASE FEL has been routinely operated to provide photon beams for user experiments over a period of a few weeks. Analysis on the experimental data gave the normalized-slice emittance at the lasing part is around $0.7\ensuremath{\pi}\text{ }\mathrm{mm}\text{ }\mathrm{mrad}$. This result indicates that the normalized-slice emittance of the initial electron beam, $0.6\ensuremath{\pi}\text{ }\mathrm{mm}\text{ }\mathrm{mrad}$ in a 90% core part, is kept almost unchanged after the bunch compression process with a compression factor of approximately 300. The success of the SCSS test accelerator strongly encourages the realization of a compact XFEL source.

A simple scheme for field enhancement in synchrotron radiation sources such as undulators and wigglers is proposed, which is based on the fundamental nature of the superconducting loop where the magnetic flux is preserved. A superconductor ring placed to enclose the magnetic pole works as a kind of permanent magnet. The magnetization is performed by electromagnetic induction brought by the opening movement of the magnetic gap. Since neither additional external power supplies nor current leads are necessary, high-temperature bulk superconductors can easily be implemented in this scheme. Calculations to check the effectiveness of the new concept show that the critical current density of the superconductor is crucial to the performance of the synchrotron radiation sources based on this concept. Experiments were performed to verify the principle of the proposed scheme, which gave promising results to strongly support it.