Principles of Free Electron Lasers

This book presents a comprehensive description of the physics of free-electron lasers starting from the fundamentals and proceeding through detailed derivations of the equations describing electron trajectories, and spontaneous and stimulated emission. Linear and nonlinear analyses are described, as are detailed explanations of the nonlinear simulation of a variety of configurations including amplifiers, oscillators, self-amplified spontaneous emission, high-gain harmonic generation, and optical klystrons. Theory and simulation are anchored using comprehensive comparisons with a wide variety of experiments. - Provides a complete and comprehensive discussion of the physics of free-electron lasers; - Discusses basic physical concepts, along with detailed derivations of the relevant particle dynamics; - Describes a variety of important configurations in use today.