Control of FEL radiation properties by tailoring the seed pulses

Seeded free-electron lasers (FELs) produce intense, ultrashort and fully coherent X-ray pulses. These seeded FEL pulses depend on the initial seed properties. Therefore, controlling the seed laser allows tailoring the FEL radiation for phase-sensitive experiments. In this contribution, we present detailed simulation studies to characterize the FEL process and to predict the operation performance of seeded pulses. In addition, we show experimental data on the temporal characterization of the seeded FEL pulses performed at the sFLASH experiment in Hamburg. (paper)