A longitudinal space charge amplifier (LSCA), operating in soft x-ray regime, was recently proposed. Such an amplifier consists of a few amplification cascades (focusing channel and chicane) and a short radiator undulator in the end. The broadband nature of LSCA supports generation of few-cycle pulses as well as wavelength compression. In this paper we consider an application of these properties of LSCA for generation of attosecond x-ray pulses. It is shown that a compact and cheap addition to the soft x-ray free-electron laser facility FLASH would allow one to generate 60 attosecond (FWHM) long x-ray pulses with the peak power at the 100 MW level and a contrast above 98%.

• Received 30 March 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.14.090702

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Published by the American Physical Society