23–28 Aug 2026
America/Los_Angeles timezone

Laser-modulation-driven x-ray pulse shaping in regenerative amplifier free-electron lasers

TUP24
25 Aug 2026, 16:00
2h
Poster Presentation Session 6: FEL Oscillators and Infrared FEL (IR-FEL) Tuesday Poster Session

Speaker

Zhen Zhang (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Description

We present a robust method for generating custom-shaped, coherent hard X-ray pulses in regenerative amplifier free-electron lasers (RAFELs) using laser-induced energy modulation of the electron beam. A temporally shaped optical modulation imprints an optical-wavelength energy pattern on the beam, which interacts with the recirculated seed in the X-ray cavity to generate spectral sidebands. These sidebands lie outside the Bragg reflection bandwidth and are extracted as outcoupled radiation, while the seed is retained for continued amplification, enabling a novel mechanism for both output coupling and pulse shaping. This approach allows deterministic control over the spectral and temporal properties of the emitted X-rays, including multicolor generation, twin-pulse structures, pulse duration tuning, and complex temporal waveforms. Importantly, it does not require modification of the RAFEL cavity or optics and is fully compatible with high-repetition-rate operation, offering a practical pathway to deliver coherent, shaped and on-demand X-ray pulses for advanced time-resolved and nonlinear X-ray science.

I have read and accept the Privacy Policy Statement Yes

Author

Zhen Zhang (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Co-authors

Erik Hemsing (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) Jingyi Tang (Stanford University) Zhirong Huang (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.