HF-4/5 is located in our radiation-shielding “bunker“ and designed for accelerating electrons to GeV energies and use them for seeding an undulator to generate coherent XUV/X-rays and use them for a range of applications. The beamline is currently being operated with ATLAS-100 and will be expanded to accept pulses from the LWS-100 and PFS laser systems upon their commissioning in 2010. It consists of three vacuum chambers with the first accommodating a long-focal-length (f/10-f/20) focusing geometry for irradiating gaseous/cluster media with relativistic laser pulses. The second one incorporates a wide range of diagnostics for the characterization of electron beam transport and the transmitted laser pulse. A future conversion to accomodate colliding pulse geometries is possible. The third chamber incorporates the undulator for X-ray generation. Shielding for attenuating the electron beam and secondary particles is provided. The vacuum system is designed for rapid pump down and high gas loads. The beamline can be supplemented with a further chamber. This will serve for performing time-resolved and bio-medical imaging with the generated few-femtosecond brilliant XUV/X-ray pulses.

contact: S. Karsch, F. Grüner