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Concept
Free-electron laser
Summary
A free-electron laser (FEL) is a (fourth generation) light source producing extremely brilliant and short pulses of radiation. An FEL functions and behaves in many ways like a laser, but instead of using stimulated emission from atomic or molecular excitations, it employs relativistic electrons as a gain medium. Radiation is generated by a bunch of electrons passing through a magnetic structure (called undulator or wiggler). In an FEL, this radiation is further amplified as the radiation re-interacts with the electron bunch such that the electrons start to emit coherently, thus allowing an exponential increase in overall radiation intensity.
As electron kinetic energy and undulator parameters can be adapted as desired, free-electron lasers are tunable and can be built for a wider frequency range than any other type of laser, currently ranging in wavelength from microwaves, through terahertz radiation and infrared, to the visible spectrum, ultraviolet, and X-ray.
The first free-electron laser was developed by John Madey in 1971 at Stanford University using technology developed by Hans Motz and his coworkers, who built an undulator at Stanford in 1953, using the wiggler magnetic configuration. Madey used a 43 MeV electron beam and 5 m long wiggler to amplify a signal.
To create an FEL, a beam of electrons is accelerated to almost the speed of light. The beam passes through a periodic arrangement of magnets with alternating poles across the beam path, which creates a side to side magnetic field. The direction of the beam is called the longitudinal direction, while the direction across the beam path is called transverse. This array of magnets is called an undulator or a wiggler, because the Lorentz force of the field forces the electrons in the beam to wiggle transversely, traveling along a sinusoidal path about the axis of the undulator.
The transverse acceleration of the electrons across this path results in the release of photons, which are monochromatic but still incoherent, because the electromagnetic waves from randomly distributed electrons interfere constructively and destructively in time.
Official source
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