Speaker
Description
Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) allows producing a few GeV electron beams in a plasma channel with a length of few cm with unique parameters such as bunch length of a few fsec and the bunch charge up to 100 pC. With the constant improvement of the electron beam parameters, in particular, the energy spread and the emittance of the electron beam, LWFA can to be considered as a candidate for next generation of the soft and hard X-ray free-electron laser (X-FEL). ELI-Beamlines research centre, located near Prague (Czech Republic) is an international user facility for fundamental and applied research using ultra-intense lasers and ultra-short high-energy electron and proton beams. Combination of new laser development with better understanding and control of LWFA opens the way to develop at ELI-Beamlines a new generation of XFEL, based on the revolutionary laser technology and latest achievements in existing “linac-based” XFEL facilities. In the frame of this report, we overview the laser-driven FEL research program at ELI-Beamlines and discuss a possible extension of this research program to the hard X-ray laser-driven compact FEL.
