High peak pulse power operation of the OK-4/Duke XUV FEL

A 1 GeV electron storage ring dedicated for UV-VUV FEL operation was commissioned last year at the Duke University Free Electron Laser Laboratory. The XUV FEL project, based on the collaboration of the Duke FEL Laboratory and Budker Insititute for Nuclear Physics (Novosibirsk, Russia) is described. The OK-4 UV FEL has arrived from Novosibirsk at the Duke FEL laboratory and is in the process of installation. The main parameters of the DFELL storage ring, the OK-4 optical klystron, and the experimental set-up are presented. The parameters of the UV-VUV FEL are given and the possible future upgrades to this system are discussed. We have studied the dynamics of giant pulse generation in the Duke/OK-4 UV FEL. We have developed a new macro-particle code for giant pulse simulation including all known mechanisms of storage ring FEL interaction. Results of these giant pulse simulations are presented in the paper. A new mechanism of 'super-pulse' generation was discovered during these studies. It allows the generation of peak power up to 10 gigawatts using 'phase- space' refreshment of the electron beam caused by synchrotron motion.