Two-color FEL amplifier for femtosecond-resolution pump-probe experiments with GW-scale X-ray and optical pulses

The paper describes a scheme for pump-probe experiments that could be performed at the soft X-ray SASE FEL at the TESLA Test Facility (TTF) at DESY and determines what additional hardware developments will be required to bring these experiments to fruition. Pump-probe experiments combining pulses from a XFEL and optical femtosecond laser are very attractive for sub-picosecond time-resolved studies. Since the synchronization between the two light sources to an accuracy of 100 fs is not yet solved, it is proposed to derive both femtosecond radiation pulses from the same electron bunch but from two insertion devices. This eliminates the need for synchronization and developing tunable, high power femtosecond quantum laser. In the proposed scheme for pump-probe experiments, GW-level soft X-ray pulse is naturally synchronized with his GW-level optical pulse and cancel jitter. The concept is based on generation of the optical radiation in the master oscillator-power FEL amplifier configuration. An attractive feature of the FEL amplifier scheme is the absence of limitation which would prevent operation in the femtosecond regime in a wide (200–900 nm) wavelength range. The problem of tunable quantum seed laser can be solved with commercially available long pulse dye laser. An important feature of the proposed scheme is that optical radiator uses the spent electron beam. As a result, saturation mode of operation of the optical FEL does not interfere with the main mode of the soft X-ray SASE FEL operation.