THz Pump and X-Ray Probe Development at LCLS

We report on measurements of broadband, intense, coherent transition radiation at terahertz frequencies, generated as the highly compressed electron bunches in Linear Coherent Light Source (LCLS) pass through a thin metal foil. The foil is inserted at 45{sup o} to the electron beam, 31 m downstream of the undulator. The THz emission passes downward through a diamond window to an optical table below the beamline. A fully compressed 350-pC bunch produces up to 0.5 mJ in a nearly half-cycle pulse of 50 fs FWHM with a spectrum peaking at 10 THz. We estimate a peak field at the focus of over 2.5 GV/m. A 20-fs Ti:sapphire laser oscillator has recently been installed for electro-optic measurements. We are developing plans to add an x-ray probe to this THz pump, by diffracting FEL x rays onto the table with a thin silicon crystal. The x rays would arrive with an adjustable time delay after the THz. This will provide a rapid start to user studies of materials excited by intense single-cycle pulses and will serve as a step toward a THz transport line for LCLS-II