Simulation of DARMSTADT Free Electron Laser and a Comparison of High Gain Free Electron Lasers

The Free Electron Laser, with its wavelength tunability unlike any other laser, may be used in numerous future applications. These applications range from high energy laser weapons to surgical lasers for medical use. This thesis covers three separate topics concerning the FEL: the height of the separatrix for a tapered undulator, use of dimensionless parameters in a simple model and description for several high gain free electron lasers, and simulations of the Darmstadt free electron laser. The first topic yielded a formula for the separatrix height. The second topic utilized data from the proposed LCLS and TESLA x-ray lasers, the Electron Laser Facility at Lawrence Livermore Labs and the Free Electron Laser experiments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop dimensionless parameters for use in a simple model. For the last topic desynchronism curves for seven tapers were computed and gave expected results.