A new facility named SPARC_LAB has been recently launched at the INFN National Laboratories in Frascati, merging the potentialities of the former projects SPARC and PLASMONX. We describe in this paper the status and the future perspectives at the SPARC_LAB facility.

Progress in laser wakefield accelerators indicates their suitability as a driver of compact free-electron lasers (FELs). High brightness is defined by the normalized transverse emittance, which should be less than 1$\pi${}\,\,mm\,mrad for an x-ray FEL. We report high-resolution measurements of the emittance of 125~MeV, monoenergetic beams from a wakefield accelerator. An emittance as low as 1.1\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.1$\pi${}\,\,mm\,mrad is measured using a pepper-pot mask. This sets an upper limit on the emittance, which is comparable with conventional linear accelerators. A peak transverse brightness of 5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}1015\,\,A\,m-1\,rad-1 makes it suitable for compact XUV FELs.

Very high energy electrons (VHEE) in the range from 100-250 MeV have the potential of becoming an alternative modality in radiotherapy because of their improved dosimetry properties compared with MV photons from contemporary medical linear accelerators. Due to the need for accurate dosimetry of small field size VHEE beams we have performed dose measurements using EBT2 Gafchromic® film. Calibration of the film has been carried out for beams of two different energy ranges: 20 MeV and 165 MeV from conventional radio frequency linear accelerators. In addition, EBT2 film has been used for dose measurements with 135 MeV electron beams produced by a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator. The dose response measurements and percentage depth dose profiles have been compared with calculations carried out using the general-purpose FLUKA Monte Carlo (MC) radiation transport code. The impact of induced radioactivity on film response for VHEEs has been evaluated using the MC simulations. A neutron yield of the order of 10(-5) neutrons cm(-2) per incident electron has been estimated and induced activity due to radionuclide production is found to have a negligible effect on total dose deposition and film response. Neutron and proton contribution to the equivalent doses are negligible for VHEE. The study demonstrates that EBT2 Gafchromic film is a reliable dosimeter that can be used for dosimetry of VHEE. The results indicate an energy-independent response of the dosimeter for 20 MeV and 165 MeV electron beams and has been found to be suitable for dosimetry of VHEE.

We present the experimental demonstration of a new scheme for the generation of ultrashort pulse trains based on free-electron-laser (FEL) emission from a multipeaked electron energy distribution. Two electron beamlets with energy difference larger than the FEL parameter $$\rho${}$ have been generated by illuminating the cathode with two ps-spaced laser pulses, followed by a rotation of the longitudinal phase space by velocity bunching in the linac. The resulting self-amplified spontaneous emission FEL radiation, measured through frequency-resolved optical gating diagnostics, reveals a double-peaked spectrum and a temporally modulated pulse structure.