Second and Third Harmonic Measurements at the Linac Coherent Light Source

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) started user commissioning in October of 2009, producing Free Electron Laser (FEL) radiation between 800 eV and 8 keV (1). The fundamental wavelength of the FEL dominates radiation in the beamlines, but the beam also produces nonnegligible levels of radiation at higher harmonics. The harmonics may be desirable as a source of harder X-rays, but may also contribute backgrounds to user experiments. In this paper we present preliminary measurements of the second and third harmonic content in the FEL. We also measure the photon energy cutoff of the soft X-ray mirrors to determine the extent to which higher harmonics reach the experimental stations. We present preliminary second and third harmonic measurements for LCLS. At low energies (below 1 keV fundamental) we measure less than 0.1% second harmonic content. The second harmonic will be present in the soft X-ray beam line for fundamental photon energies below approximately 1.1 keV. At low and high energies, we measure third harmonic content ranging from 0.5% to 3%, which is consistent with expectations. For both second and third harmonics, experimental work is ongoing. More rigorous analysis of the data will be completed soon.