Helical magnetized wiggler for synchrotron radiation laser

A helical magnetized iron wiggler has been built for a novel infrared synchrotron radiation laser (SRL) experiment. The wiggler consists of four periods of helical iron structure immersed in a solenoid field. This wiggler is to impart transverse velocity to a prebunched 6 MeV electron beam, and thus to obtain a desired high orbit pitch ratio for the SRL. Field tapering at beam entrance is considered and tested on a similar wiggler. Analytic and simulated characteristics of wigglers of this type are discussed and the performance of the fabricated wigglers is demonstrated experimentally. A 4.7 kG peak field was measured for a 6.4 mm air gap and a 5.4 cm wiggler period at a 20 kG solenoid field. The measured helical fields compare favorably with the analytical solution. This type of helical iron wigglers has the potential to be scaled to small periods with strong field amplitude.