The Development of the Linac Coherent Light Source RF Gun

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) is the first x-ray laser user facility based upon a free electron laser (FEL) requiring extraordinary beam quality to saturate at 1.5 angstroms within a 100 meter undulator.[1] This new type of light source is using the last kilometer of the three kilometer linac at SLAC to accelerate the beam to an energy as high as 13.6 GeV and required a new electron gun and injector to produce a very bright beam for acceleration. At the outset of the project it was recognized that existing RF guns had the potential to produce the desired beam but none had demonstrated it. Therefore a new RF gun or at least the modification of an existing gun was necessary. The parameters listed in Table 1 illustrate the unique characteristics of LCLS which drive the requirements for the electron gun as given in Table 2. The gun beam quality needs to accommodate emittance growth as the beam is travels through approximately one kilometer of linac and two bunch compressors before reaching the undulator. These beam requirements were demonstrated during the recent commissioning runs of the LCLS injector and linac [2] due to the successful design, fabrication, testing and operation of the LCLS gun. The goal of this paper is to relate the technical background of how the gun was able to achieve and in some cases exceed these requirements by understanding and correcting the deficiencies of the prototype s-band RF photocathode gun, the BNL/SLAC/UCLA Gun III. This paper begins with a brief history and technical description of Gun III and the Gun Test Facility (GTF) at SLAC, and studies of the gun's RF and emittance compensation solenoid. The work at the GTF identified the gun and solenoid deficiencies, and helped to define the specifications for the LCLS gun. Section 1.1.5 describes the modeling used to compute and correct the gun RF fields and Section 1.1.6 describes the use of these fields in the electron beam simulations. The magnetic design and measurements of the emittance compensation solenoid are discussed in Section 1.1.7. The novel feature of the LCLS solenoid is the embedded quadrupole correctors. The thermo-mechanical engineering of the LCLS gun is discussed in Section 1.1.8, and the cold and hot RF tests are described in Section 1.1.9. The results of this work are summarized and concluding remarks are given in Section 1.1.10