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A general laser-beam synchronization method based on coherent radiation measurement is introduced. Fundamental principles and detailed steps to achieve spatial and temporal synchronization are described. Sub-picosecond level synchronization between the seed laser and the electron beam has been achieved with this method at the Shanghai Deep-Ultraviolet Free-Electron Laser (SDUV-FEL) test facility, which lays a solid foundation for seeding experiments such as high-gain harmonic-generation (HGHG), echo-enabled harmonic-generation (EEHG) and cascaded HGHG. Moreover, longitudinal profiles of the electron beam under different conditions are measured and analyzed.

Laser-beam interaction in an undulator is commonly suggested in the development of free electron laser (FEL) schemes. In this paper, a three-dimensional algorithm is developed to assist in laser-beam interaction simulation in an undulator, which is built on the basis of the fundamentals of electrodynamics, i.e. the electron's behavior is determined by the magnetic field and the laser electric field in the time domain. On the basis of the algorithm, the detuning effect in a laser heater, the carrier envelope phase effect of a few-cycle laser in attosecond X-ray FEL schemes and output wavelength tuning in a high gain harmonic generation FEL are numerically discussed.

The echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG) scheme offers remarkable efficiency for generating high harmonic microbunching with a relatively small energy modulation. A proof of principle experiment of the EEHG scheme has been proposed at the Shanghai deep ultraviolet (SDUV) free electron laser (FEL) facility, where the 4th harmonic of the seed laser is amplified in the 9 m long radiator. To explore the advantages of the EEHG scheme, in this paper, a method of measuring the coherent high harmonic radiation of the radiator is proposed to investigate the electron beam microbunching corresponding to the 10th-20th harmonics of the seed laser. The principle of the proposed method, comparisons with existing methods and the simulation results are presented and discussed.

In this paper, by using the "frequency up-conversion" principle with a high gain harmonic generation free electron laser and an external seed laser, we consider the possibility of modulating a relativistic electron beam on the attosecond scale, so that it can produce coherent spontaneous radiation from the deep ultraviolet to the hard X-ray spectral region with a very short radiator. Analytical estimation and three-dimensional numerical modeling show the great potential to reach ultra-high harmonics up to several thousand. For an electron bunch with the typical quality as in the free electron laser scheme and a seed laser with 800 nm wavelength, 0.8 nm attosecond trains with alterable duration and GW scale peak power are modeled. The output radiation exhibits good shot-to-shot stability, full coherence and perfect tuning ability between the discrete harmonics of the seed frequency.

With the right, choice of parameters in the free electron laser (FEL) scheme, the undulator can be primarily operated at high order harmonic modes and the harmonic radiation is expected to be significantly enhanced. Recently, the possibility of proof-of-principle harmonic operation experiments on the basis of the Shanghai deep ultraviolet (SDUV) FEL test facility has been studied. In this paper, the principle of harmonic operation, three dimensional numerical approaches, and detailed performances of proposed harmonic operation at SDUV FEL are presented.

Using the recently proposed echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG) free-electron laser (FEL) scheme, it is shown that operating the Shanghai deep ultraviolet FEL (SDUV-FEL) with single-stage to higher harmonics is very promising, with higher frequency up-conversion efficiency, higher haxmonic selectivity and lower power requirement of the seed laser. The considerations on a proof-of-principle experiment and expected performance in SDUV-FEL are given.

In high gain harmonic generation (HGHG) free electron laser (FEL), with the right choice of parameters of the modulator undulator, the dispersive section and the seed laser, one may make the spatial bunching of the electron beam density distribution correspond to one of the harmonic frequencies of the radiator radiation, instead of the fundamental frequency of the radiator radiation in conventional HGHG, thus the radiator undulator is in harmonic operation (HO) mode. In this paper, we investigate HO of HGHG FEL. Theoretical analyses with universal method are derived and numerical simulations in ultraviolet and deep ultraviolet spectral regions are given. It shows that the power of the 3rd harmonic radiation in the HO of HGHG may be as high as 18.5% of the fundamental power level. Thus HO of HGHG FEL may obtain short wavelength by using lower beam energy.

In a planar undulator employed free electron laser (FEL), each harmonic radiation starts from linear amplification and ends with nonlinear harmonic interactions of the lower nonlinear harmonics and the fundamental radiation. In this paper, we investigate the harmonic generation based on the dispersion relation driven from the coupled Maxwell-Vlasov equations, taking into account the effects due to energy spread, emittance, betatron oscillation of electron beam as well as diffraction guiding of the radiation field. A 3D universal scaling function for gain of the linear harmonic generation and a 1D universal scaling function for gain of the nonlinear harmonic generation are presented, which promise rapid computation in FEL design and optimization. The analytical approaches have been validated by 3D simulation results in large range.

Cascading stages of high gain harmonic generation free electron laser (FEL) seem to be a feasible way to generate short wavelength radiation. With help of the analytical estimates, we design a two-stage cascading scheme to achieve 131 nm DUV radiation on the basis of the Shanghai deep ultraviolet free electron laser test facility. Detailed studies on the FEL performance, the stability and the sensitivity of the output power to parameter variation have been achieved by GENESIS1.3, and design of the lattice structure is presented.

We adopt the groove guide as the cavity of the undulator to reduce the diffraction effect. The groove guide has the advantages of lower surface energy loss, larger power capacity, less modes, and larger structure dimension over the traditional method waveguide. The attenuation calculation is given in this paper including the cavity optimization. And the dispersive character indicates that the oscillator can work in different modes with the change of the electron beam energy.

In order to generate coherent hard x-ray free-electron laser ( FEL), cascading stages of high-gain harmonic generation ( HGHG) scheme usually employ seed pulse with longitudinal length down to tens of femtoseconds. Such a short pulse length ( SPL) seed laser, with broad bandwidth in the spectral domain, can no longer be characterized by monochromatic light in FEL equations. In this paper, a set of self-consistent, multifrequency FEL equations is derived to describe the interaction between the seed laser and the electrons in the modulator of HGHG. Moreover, the SPL effects of the seed laser on the electron beam's energy modulation, the output pulse length, the output peak power, and the output wavelength tuning in HGHG are theoretically and numerically investigated. Study demonstrates that the SPL seed laser seriously and significantly influences the HGHG performances, and these influences have to be taken into account in the design and optimization of the seeded FEL scheme.

Stringent tolerance budget is restricted on the linear accelerator (linac) parameters, such as the mean beam energy stability, peak current variation, electron bunch arrival time jitter, and the transverse beam position offset, in order to generate stable output pulses in modern linac driven free electron laser facility. In this paper, a corrugated pipe is used as a beam energy stabilizer. Analytical and numerical methods for designing such kind of stabilizer are described, and the simulation results show that the beam energy jitter can be reduced more than 10% after this structure is adopted for the case of Dalian Coherent Light Source (DCLS) linac.