First Free Electrons at SwissFEL

At SwissFEL the first free electrons were produced and accelerated to 7.9 MeV. The electrons were stopped directly after the gun in the gun-spectrometer. The bunch charge was 20-50pC, with a repition rate of 10Hz. First measurements showed that the generated electron beam was of high quality. This means that the first milestone for the SwissFEL beam commissioning was reached!

As next step the electron energy will be raised succesively to 560 MeV and the electron beam will be lead through the entire 120 meters of the injector. In autumn the injector will be connected to the accelerator and at the end of the year the electron beam will go pas the undulators.