Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Designs and simulation studies for harmonic cascades, consisting of multiple stages of harmonic generation in free electron lasers (FELs), are presented as part of the LUX R&D project to design ultrafast, high photon energy light sources for basic science. Beam energies of 1.1, 2.1, and 3.1 GeV, corresponding to each pass through a recirculating linac, have independent designs for the harmonic cascade. Simulations were performed using the GENESIS FEL code, to obtain predictions for the performance of these cascades over a wide range of photon energies in terms of the peak power and laser profile. The output laser beam consists of photon energies of up to 1 keV, with durations of the order of 200 fs or shorter. The contribution of shot noise to the laser output is minimal, however fluctuations in the laser and electron beam properties can lead to variations in the FEL output. The sensitivity of the cascade to electron beam properties and misalignments is studied, taking advantage of the fact that GENESIS is a fully 3-dimensional code.