Two-Bunch Operation at the FERMI FEL Facility

FERMI is a linac-driven free electron laser (FEL) based upon the High Gain Harmonic Generation (HGHG) scheme. In standard conditions a bunch of 700 pC of charge with sub mm-mrad emittances is accelerated to 1.2-1.5GeV in a normal conducting S-band linac and drives FEL-1 or FEL-2 undula-tor line, which lase respectively in the range 100-20nm or 20-4nm. A number of two-color schemes have been implemented at FERMI for pump/probe experiments, all consisting in making two portions of the same electron bunch lase at two different wavelengths, with a time-separation from 0 to few hundreds of fs. In order to increase the time separation to ns and tens of ns we have explored the acceleration of two inde-pendent electron bunches separated by multiple of the linac main radio-frequency period, i.e. 333ps. Measure-ments and characterization of this two-bunch mode oper-ation are presented, including trajectory control, impact of longitudinal and transverse wakefields on the trailing bunch and manipulation of the longitudinal phase space.