The Isochronous Storage Ring Free Electron Laser

In this thesis I present the results from a theoretical model for the dynamic behavior of an isochronous storage ring free electron laser. Without assuming many specific details about the design of the storage ring we can predict much about the restrictions and operating characteristics of such a laser. Based on storage ring tolerances I first calculate electron bunch characteristics in an isochronous storage ring including equilibrium bunch length and energy spread. The storage ring laser model presented here then gives all the important aspects of laser performance including gain, laser power and spectrum all as functions of time in addition to providing the saturation properties and efficiency of the storage ring laser system. Laser operation is studied in both amplifier and oscillator configurations as well as self-amplified startup from spontaneous noise. Although an earlier thesis has looked at the problem of the isochronous storage ring FEL (Deacon 1979, Stanford) it did not completely describe laser performance. In addition, the work have done for this thesis indicates markedly higher tolerance requirements and dramatically different laser behavior, due mostly to energy spread growth, which was not taken into consideration by Deacon. It is shown here that while the isochronous storage ring FEL at first presents an intriguing possibility for a high-efficiency, high average -power laser operating at infrared wavelengths, closer examination reveals that its advantages are actually quite limited.