User issues at the Stanford picosecond free electron laser center

Assembling a productive user facility around a Free Electron Laser (FEL) is a complex task. Reliable operation of the FEL is a necessary, but by no means sufficient, condition to ensure that the center will be able to attract and keep the interest of first rate researchers. Some other issues which are important include: center wavelength stability and ease of tuning, bandwidth control, amplitude and position stability, ability to select arbitrary sequences of micropulses, and real time availability of information of the FEL's important parameters (spectral width, center wavelength, micropulse length and energy, etc.). In addition, at the Stanford Center we have found that providing additional systems (conventional picosecond lasers synchronized to the FEL, an FTIR spectrometer, a confocal microscopy, ...) has been important. (author)