Application of Transverse-to-Longitudinal Phase-Space-Exchanged Beam Produced from a Nano-Structure Photocathode to a Soft X-Ray Free-Electron Laser
Nano-structured cathodes can form transversely modulated beams which can be subsequently converted to temporally modulated beam via a transverse-to-longitudinal phase space-exchanging beamline. We demonstrate via numerical simulation the generation of transversely modulated beam at the nm scale and investigate the corresponding enhancement in a soft-X-ray SASE free-electron laser. Our study is supported by start-to-end simulation combining WARP, IMPACT-T and GENESIS(FEL process) and focuses on the optimization of the beamline to preserve initial modulation at the nanometer level. We also discuss the scaling of the concept to shorter-wavelengths.