Generation of ultrashort radiation pulses by injection locking a regenerative free-electron-laser amplifier

We demonstrate how a steady-state train of ultrashort radiation pulses can be produced utilizing a new free-electron laser (FEL) configuration, the injection-locked regenerative klystron amplifier (IRKA). This configuration consists of two elements: (1) a prebuncher, which microbunches the electron beams at the desired output wavelength, and (2) a multipass FEL operated at a very small cavity desynchronism and below the lasing threshold, in the regime of regenerative amplification. The regenerative amplifier is driven by the microbunched electron beam, so that the pulse-to-pulse stability is provided by the pre-buncher. The broad amplification bandwidth of this regenerative amplifier enables generation of ultrashort pulses, much shorter than a slippage length, with high efficiency. The IRKA configuration can produce such ultra-short radiation pulses while avoiding the chaotic dynamics that limits conventional FEL performance. copyright 1997 The American Physical Society