X-band Technology for FEL Sources

As is widely recognized, fourth generation Light Sources are based on FELs driven by Linacs. Soft and hard X-ray FEL facilities are presently operational at several laboratories, SLAC (LCLS), Spring-8 (SACLA), Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste (FERMI), DESY (FLASH), or are in the construction phase, PSI (SwissFEL), PAL (PAL-XFEL), DESY (European X-FEL), SLAC (LCLS II), or are newly proposed in many laboratories. Most of the above mentioned facilities use NC S-band (3 GHz) or C-band (6 GHz) linacs for generating a multi-GeV low emittance beam. The use of the C-band increases the linac operating gradients, with an overall reduction of the machine length and cost. These advantages, however, can be further enhanced by using X-band (12 GHz) linacs that operate with gradients twice that given by C-band technology. With the low bunch charge option, currently considered for future X-ray FELs, X-band technology offers a low cost and compact solution for generating multi-GeV, low emittance bunches. The paper reports the ongoing activities in the framework of a collaboration among several laboratories for the development and validation of X-band technology for FEL based photon sources.