High average power optical FEL amplifiers

Historically, the first demonstration of the optical FEL was in an amplifier configuration at Stanford University [1]. There were other notable instances of amplifying a seed laser, such as the LLNL PALADIN amplifier [2] and the BNL ATF High-Gain Harmonic Generation FEL [3]. However, for the most part FELs are operated as oscillators or self amplified spontaneous emission devices. Yet, in wavelength regimes where a conventional laser seed can be used, the FEL can be used as an amplifier. One promising application is for very high average power generation, for instance FEL's with average power of 100 kW or more. The high electron beam power, high brightness and high efficiency that can be achieved with photoinjectors and superconducting Energy Recovery Linacs (ERL) combine well with the high-gain FEL amplifier to produce unprecedented average power FELs. This combination has a number of advantages. In particular, we show that for a given FEL power, an FEL amplifier can introduce lower energy spread in the beam as compared to a traditional oscillator. This property gives the ERL based FEL amplifier a great wall-plug to optical power efficiency advantage. The optics for an amplifier is simple and compact. In addition to the general features of the high average power FEL amplifier, we will look at a 100 kW class FEL amplifier is being designed to operate on the 0.5 ampere Energy Recovery Linac which is under construction at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Collider-Accelerator Department.