Short period, high field undulators can enable short wavelength free electron lasers (FELs) at low beam energy, with decreased gain length, thus allowing much more compact and less costly FEL systems. We describe an ongoing initiative to develop such an undulator based on an approach that utilizes novel cryogenic materials. While this effort was begun in the context of extending the photon energy regime of a laser-plasma accelerator based electron source, we consider here implications of its application to sub-fs scenarios in which more conventional injectors are employed. The use of such low-charge, ultrashort beams, which has recently been proposed as a method of obtaining single-spike performance in x-ray FELs, is seen in simulation to give unprecedented beam brightness. This brightness, when considered in tandem with short wavelength, high field undulators, enables extremely high performance FELs. Two examples discussed in this paper illustrate this point well. The first is the use of the SPARX injector at 2.1~GeV with 1~pC of charge to give 8~GW peak power in a single spike at 6.5~\AA{} with a photon beam peak brightness greater than 1035\,\,photons/(s\,mm2\,mrad2\,\,0.1%\,\,BW), which will also reach LCLS wavelengths on the 5th harmonic. The second is the exploitation of the LCLS injector with 0.25~pC, 150 as pulses to lase at 1.5~\AA{} using only 4.5~GeV energy; beyond this possibility, we present start-to-end simulations of lasing at unprecedented short wavelength, 0.15~\AA{}, using 13.65~GeV LCLS design energy.

Photonic structures operating in the terahertz (THz) spectral region enable the essential characteristics of confinement, modal control, and electric field shielding for very high gradient accelerators based on wakefields in dielectrics. We report here an experimental investigation of THz wakefield modes in a three-dimensional photonic woodpile structure. Selective control in exciting or suppressing of wakefield modes with a nonzero transverse wave vector is demonstrated by using drive beams of varying transverse ellipticity. Additionally, we show that the wakefield spectrum is insensitive to the offset position of strongly elliptical beams. These results are consistent with analytic theory and three-dimensional simulations and illustrate a key advantage of wakefield systems with Cartesian symmetry: the suppression of transverse wakes by elliptical beams.

Electron beam quality is paramount for X-ray pulse production in free-electron-lasers (FELs). State-of-the-art linear accelerators (linacs) can deliver multi-GeV electron beams with sufficient quality for hard X-ray-FELs, albeit requiring km-scale setups, whereas plasma-based accelerators can produce multi-GeV electron beams on metre-scale distances, and begin to reach beam qualities sufficient for EUV FELs. Here we show, that electron beams from plasma photocathodes many orders of magnitude brighter than state-of-the-art can be generated in plasma wakefield accelerators (PWFAs), and then extracted, captured, transported and injected into undulators without significant quality loss. These ultrabright, sub-femtosecond electron beams can drive hard X-FELs near the cold beam limit to generate coherent X-ray pulses of attosecond-Angstrom class, reaching saturation after only 10 metres of undulator. This plasma-X-FEL opens pathways for advanced photon science capabilities, such as unperturbed observation of electronic motion inside atoms at their natural time and length scale, and towards higher photon energies.

We report experimental measurements of narrow-band, single-mode excitation, and drive beam energy modulation, in a dielectric wakefield accelerating structure with planar geometry and Bragg-reflector boundaries. A short, relativistic electron beam ($\sim 1\mathrm{ps}$) with moderate charge ($\sim 100\mathrm{pC}$) is used to drive the wakefields in the structure. The fundamental mode of the structure is reinforced by constructive interference in the alternating dielectric layers at the boundary, and is characterized by the spectral analysis of the emitted coherent Cherenkov radiation signal. Data analysis shows a narrow-band peak at 210 GHz corresponding to the fundamental mode of the structure. Simulations in both 2D and 3D provide insight into the propagating fields and reproduction of the electron beams dynamics observables and emitted radiation characteristics.