Technical Reports: Ultrafast X-ray Science at the Sub-Picosecond Pulse Source

The ultrafast, high brightness X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) sources of the future have the potential to revolutionize the study of time-dependent phenomena in the natural sciences. These linear accelerator (linac) sources will generate femtosecond (fs) X-ray pulses with peak flux comparable to conventional lasers, and far exceeding all other X-ray sources. The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) has pioneered the development of linac science and technology for decades, and since 2000 SLAC and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) have focused on the development of linac based ultrafast electron and X-ray sources.