Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Illinois, USA and Sincrotrone Trieste, FERMI@Elettra FEL Project Basovizza Italy.

Fully coherent, high peak power (GW), femtosecond time-scale pulses are possible with next-generation light sources generated from high brightness electron beams. These sources are coming of age for use by a myriad of scientists and engineers. Quite literally, the machines or plans for such machines are being developed worldwide.

Several new user systems are in the process of being commissioned including the SLAC Linac Coherent Light Source (hard x-rays) and the FERMI@Elettra at Sincrotrone Trieste (VUV to soft x-rays). Other novel light sources are also being considered, including an x-ray oscillator. The machines, as well as the science to be performed, are remarkable. An existing user facility, FLASH at DESY, currently reveals their utility, as nearly every sample placed in the FLASH beam line has led to novel and remarkable results.

This new research frontier of ultra-fast VUV and X-ray science is demanding high peak powers, ultrashort femtosecond pulses, synchronization to external laser sources, flexibility of tuning both photon wavelength and polarization, transverse and longitudinal coherence, tunable and controlled short-wavelength photon pulse production, and advanced feedback and feed-forward systems to improve output stability. Insight into progress in all of these areas will be presented.

Sandra G. Biedron us a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne IL USA and is an associate director of the Argonne Accelerator Institute. Dr. Biedron is also a consultant on the FERMI basic sciences free-electron laser (FEL) project at ELETTRA, at Sincrotrone Trieste, Basovizza Italy. She is a physicist whose main research is in beam and laser source development and use. She is cross-trained in chemistry, biology, and electrical
engineering. She was one of the team members who proved the Self Amplified SPontaneous Emission (SASE) FEL concept in the visible to VUV wavelengths.

Dr. Biedron was also the Argonne representative and participant on the Brookhaven/Argonne high-gain harmonic generation FEL experiment. She has been involved with radio-frequency electron-gun design and testing for over 12 years and was the first in the world to predict as well as measure the nonlinear harmonic growth on two types of high-gain free-electron lasers, an important component of many new FEL projects worldwide. For more than nine years, she has managed and led the international workgroup FEL Exotica, which examines exotic beam and photon schemes, including novel magnetic designs. Dr. Biedron is an active member of several professional societies. For the SPIE, she served as chair of the Scholarships and Grants Committee for two years and was on the Awards and Education Committees. For 2007-2009, she is a member of the executive committee for the SPIE’s Optics and Photonics Optical Engineering and Applications Conference, representing the x-ray, gamma-ray, and particle technologies track. Dr. Biedron is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

She served as the secretary and treasurer of the Chicago Section, Nuclear and Plasma Sciences/Magnetics Society, and served on the Program Committees of the 2003 and 2009 Particle Accelerator Conference, jointly sponsored by the IEEE and the American Physical Society (APS). Since 2005, she has been the particle accelerator science and technology elected representative to the Nuclear Plasma and Sciences Society of the IEEE. Recently, she served on a committee of the U.S. National Academies for the published report “Scientific Assessment of High-Power Free-Electron Laser Technology.” She has served on a variety of international program and organizing committees for workshops and conferences. Dr. Biedron has 40 archival papers in the area of FELs/coherent radiators (14 as first author) and a U.S. patent.