History of KU-FEL Facility Development

Important milestones are written with red colored characters.

1995: FEL research started by Prof. Kiyoshi Yoshikawa.

1998: FEL facility development started by Prof. Tetsuo Yamazaki.

1998: 1st electron beam generated from thermionic RF gun.

2002: Electron beam acceleration up to 40 MeV.

2004: Current KU-FEL building constructed.

2006: 1st undulator was installed.

2008 Mar.: First lasing of MIR-FEL was achieved at 13 micro-meter

2008 May.: First MIR-FEL saturation was achieved at 13 micro-meter.

2008: Project of THz-FEL (now changed to THz-CUR) started.

2009: User experiments of MIR-FEL started.

2011: The Joint Usage/Research Center for Zero Emission Energy Research started.

2011 Dec.: Replacement of Undulator and Optical Cavity Mirrors of MIR-FEL.

2012: Construction of THz-CUR started.

2013: Achieving the direct observation of mode-selective phonon excitation by MIR-FEL.

2014: 1st photocathode operation of MIR-FEL.

2015: 1st electron beam generated from photocathode RF gun of THz-CUR.

2016 Apr.: Electron beam compression was achieved at THz-CUR.

2016 Aug.: 1st quasi-monochromatic THz beam generated from THz-CUR.

2018: Project of FEL-HHG source under MEXT Q-LEAP started. (MIR-FEL)

2019: Achieving the highest extraction efficiency of oscillator FEL driven by normal conducting linac (MIR-FEL)

2020: Achieving the world highest extraction efficiency of oscillator FEL (MIR-FEL)