Hard X-ray free-electron laser based on echo-enabled staged harmonic generation scheme

A novel approach to producing coherent hard X-ray based on the echo-enabled staged harmonic generation (EESHG) free-electron laser scheme is proposed. This scheme is not a simple cascaded echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG) but consists of an EEHG and a conventional high-gain harmonic generation (HGHG) like configuration, which also works in the EEHG principle. It is shown that fully coherent hard X-ray radiation can be obtained directly from a conventional VUV seed laser with reduced size and cost in c...