Extension of the spectral range of the CLIO FEL

The CLIO FEL has been designed to lase between 2 and 20 μm. The electrons are produced by a 32/50 MeV RF linear accelerator. The injector is a 100 keV thermoionic gun, followed by a subharmonic prebuncher at 0.5 GHz and a buncher at 3 GHz. The electron beam is then accelerated in a 4.5 m long travelling wave accelerating section, to the nominal energy. The undulator consisted of 48 periods of 40 mm and the optical cavity is 4.8 m long which corresponds to a 1.2 m Rayleigh length. The peak power extracted by a ZnSe Brewster plate is 10 MW at 10 μ. But, beyond 11μm, the laser power decreases rapidely and no laser oscillation appears above 17 μm. In order to lase at farther wavelengths, few changes have been made: First of all, the power limit is due to the diffraction losses of the undulator vaccuum chamber (7 mm height and 2 m long). Numerical calculations have been made and show that cavity losses reach 55 % at 15 μm whereas the measured gain is 60 %. Consequently, the undulator vaccuum chamber have been replaced by a approximately twice bigger one. Then, the minimum gap is increased and the maximum deflection parameter K is reduced by a factor 2: laser tunability is greatly reduced. This why a new undulator has been built. The main characteristics are summarized