Tunable High Spatio-Spectral Purity Undulator Radiation from a Transported Laser Plasma Accelerated Electron Beam.

Undulator based synchrotron light sources and Free Electron Lasers (FELs) are valuable modern probes of matter with high temporal and spatial resolution. Laser Plasma Accelerators (LPAs), delivering GeV electron beams in few centimeters, are good candidates for future compact light sources. However the barriers set by the large energy spread, divergence and shot-to-shot fluctuations require a specific transport line, to shape the electron beam phase space for achieving ultrashort undulator synchrotron radiation suitable for users and even for achieving FEL amplification. Proof-of-principle LPA based undulator emission, with strong electron focusing or transport, does not yet exhibit the full specific radiation properties. We report on the generation of undulator radiation with an LPA beam based manipulation in a dedicated transport line with versatile properties. After evidencing the specific spatio-spectral signature, we tune the resonant wavelength within 200-300 nm by modification of the electron beam energy and the undulator field. We achieve a wavelength stability of 2.6%. We demonstrate that we can control the spatio-spectral purity and spectral brightness by reducing the energy range inside the chicane. We have also observed the second harmonic emission of the undulator.

Grating metrology for X-ray and V-UV synchrotron beamlines at SOLEIL.

Diffraction gratings are key elements of soft X-ray synchrotron beamlines. Besides wavelength dispersion, specific parameters can be tailored to adjust the energy dependent efficiency and focusing, and to correct wavefront aberrations. As key elements of a beamline, any departure from the design values can severely reduce the overall performance. On the other hand, known non-conformities can often be corrected by slight adjustment of the alignment parameters. A careful and accurate metrology is therefore required before installation on the beamline. After presenting what variable line spacing gratings, variable groove depth gratings, and alternate multilayer gratings are, the use of the SOLEIL long trace profiler for the measurement of groove density variation along the surface and of the atomic force microscope for the groove geometry and roughness characterizations will be discussed. A few examples of grating metrology will be presented and analyzed with the help of optical simulations.

Surface shape determination with a stitching Michelson interferometer and accuracy evaluation.

Stitching methods are increasingly used for determining the surface shape of large and high precision optical elements used in synchrotron beamlines. They consist in reconstructing the surface topography from multiple measurements on overlapping parts of the optics aperture by various algorithms. This paper is an attempt to investigate how true and accurate such a reconstruction can be. Error sources are identified and evaluated throughout the acquisition and processing steps. The analysis is based on the example SOLEIL Michelson interferometer for nano-topography, a dedicated measurement bench for stitching interferometry. We propose a method for determining the error made on the estimate of the interferometric reference surface from the stitching dataset. This determination is made before and independently of the stitching procedure itself.

Publisher Correction: Control of laser plasma accelerated electrons for light sources.

The original version of this Article contained an error in the last sentence of the first paragraph of the Introduction and incorrectly read 'A proper electron beam control is one of the main challenges towards the Graal of developing a compact alternative of X-ray free-electron lasers by coupling LWFA gigaelectron-volts per centimetre acceleration gradient with undulators in the amplification regime in equation 11, nx(n-ß) x ß: n the two times and beta the two times should be bold since they are vectorsin Eq. 12, ß should be bold as well.' The correct version is 'A proper electron beam control is one of the main challenges towards the Graal of developing a compact alternative of X-ray free-electron lasers by coupling LWFA gigaelectron-volts per centimetre acceleration gradient with undulators in the amplification regime.'This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.

Control of laser plasma accelerated electrons for light sources.

With gigaelectron-volts per centimetre energy gains and femtosecond electron beams, laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) is a promising candidate for applications, such as ultrafast electron diffraction, multistaged colliders and radiation sources (betatron, compton, undulator, free electron laser). However, for some of these applications, the beam performance, for example, energy spread, divergence and shot-to-shot fluctuations, need a drastic improvement. Here, we show that, using a dedicated transport line, we can mitigate these initial weaknesses. We demonstrate that we can manipulate the beam longitudinal and transverse phase-space of the presently available LWFA beams. Indeed, we separately correct orbit mis-steerings and minimise dispersion thanks to specially designed variable strength quadrupoles, and select the useful energy range passing through a slit in a magnetic chicane. Therefore, this matched electron beam leads to the successful observation of undulator synchrotron radiation after an 8 m transport path. These results pave the way to applications demanding in terms of beam quality.

High-reflectance magnetron-sputtered scandium-based x-ray multilayer mirrors for the water window.

We present an experimental comparison of several Sc-based short period multilayer mirrors including Cr/Sc with B4C barrier layers and CrNx/Sc, and we propose a new material combination that provides high reflectance in the water window domain. Multilayer samples with period thickness in the range 1.5-1.7 nm have been deposited by magnetron sputtering and characterized by x-ray reflectometry with a Cu-Kα source and with synchrotron radiation near the Sc-L2,3 edge. Best results are achieved by combining the nitridation of Cr layers and the addition of B4C barrier layers. Near normal incidence reflectance as high as 23% has been measured at photon energy of 397 eV. A simulation model of the multilayer structure is proposed and it predicts that reflectance higher than 32% is achievable with CrNx/B4C/Sc mirrors.

Applications of non-periodic multilayer optics for high-resolution x-ray microscopes below 30 keV.

Multilayer mirrors with enhanced bandwidth were developed with special performances for dense plasma diagnostics and mainly for high spatial resolution x-ray imaging. The multilayer coatings are designed to provide broadband x-ray reflectance at low grazing incidence angles. They are deposited onto toroidal mirror substrates. Our research is directed at the development of non-periodic (depth graded) W∕Si multilayer specifically designed for use in the 1 to 30 keV photon energy band. First, we present a study for a 5 to 22 keV x-ray spectral window at 0.45° grazing angle. The goal is to obtain a high and constant reflectivity. Second, we have modeled a broadband mirror coating for harder x-rays in the range from 10 to 30 keV, with a non-periodic structure containing 300 W∕SiC layers with periods in the range from 0.8 to 4 nm, designed for 0.35° grazing incidence angle.