Observation of an FEL efficiency increase caused by magnetic field tapering of the undulator

Abstract The aim of the present work is to investigate the influence of a tapered undulator on the main parameters of an free electron laser (FEL). The experiments were carried out at the Darmstadt FEL at an electron beam energy of 31 MeV and a wavelength of 7 μm . The effect of tapering depth on various important free electron laser characteristics such as the wavelength corresponding to the peak of the spectral distribution, the spectral width, the small signal gain and the electron energy extraction efficiency has been experimentally observed and quantitatively understood. It is shown for example that the wavelength shift is well described taking into account short pulse effects. Furthermore, for the first time, it has been found that for some values of the tapering depth the FEL efficiency exceeds that of the uniform undulator by more than 35% and 18% for negative and positive tapering, respectively. The experimental data of the spectral distributions for different tapering values are compared with predictions based on simulations for the interaction processes in the tapered undulator and with the experimental results recently obtained at the IR DEMO FEL at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.