Towards Zeptosecond-Scale Pulses from X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers
Abstract
The short wavelength and high peak power of the present generation of free-electron lasers (FELs) opens the possibility of ultra-short pulses even surpassing the present (tens to hundreds of attoseconds) capabilities of other light sources - but only if x-ray FELs can be made to generate pulses consisting of just a few optical cycles. For hard x-ray operation (~0.1nm), this corresponds to durations of approximately a single attosecond, and below into the zeptosecond scale. This talk will describe a novel method to generate trains of few-cycle pulses, at GW peak powers, from existing x-ray FEL facilities by using a relatively short 'afterburner'. Such pulses would enhance research opportunity in atomic dynamics and push capability towards the investigation of electronic-nuclear and nuclear dynamics. The corresponding multi-colour spectral output, with a bandwidth envelope increased by up to two orders of magnitudes over SASE, also has potential applications.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1309.0444,
title = {Towards Zeptosecond-Scale Pulses from X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers},
author = {D. J. Dunning and B. W. J. McNeil and N. R. Thompson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.0444},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
Submitted to 35th International Free Electron Laser Conference, New York, 2013