Nonlinear harmonic generation in the STARS FEL

BESSY proposes to build STARS, an FEL to demonstrate cascaded High Gain Harmonic Generation (HGHG). In two HGHG stages, a laser source of 700–900 nm is converted down to a wavelength of 40–70 nm. The STARS facility consists of a normal-conducting RF photoinjector, three superconducting TESLA-type acceleration modules, a magnetic bunch compressor and two stages of HGHG, each consisting of a modulator, dispersive chicane and a radiator. At the entrance of the undulator section, the beam energy is 325 MeV and the peak current is about 500 A. With these parameters, the STARS FEL reaches saturation with a peak power of 100–350 MW. A superradiant mode is also foreseen which boosts the radiation power to the GW-level. Due to nonlinear harmonic generation (NHG), free electron lasers also radiate coherently at higher harmonics of the FEL resonant frequency. STARS can hence extend its output range to even shorter wavelengths. This paper presents studies of the STARS harmonic content in the wavelength range of 6–20 nm. Seeding with high harmonic generation pulses at 32 nm is also discussed.