ALBERT

Description: A future capability in dynamic mesoscale materials science is needed to study the limitations of materials under irreversible and extreme conditions, where these limitations are caused by nonuniformities and defects in the mesoscale. This capability gap could potentially be closed with an X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL), producing 5 × 1010 photons with an energy of 42 keV, known as the Matter–Radiation Interactions in Extremes (MaRIE) XFEL. Over the last few years, researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a preconceptual design for a MaRIE-class XFEL based on existing high-brightness beam technologies, including superconducting L-band cryomodules. However, the performance of a MaRIE-class XFEL can be improved and the risk of its operation reduced by investing in emerging high-brightness beam technologies, such as the development of high-gradient normal conducting radio frequency (RF) structures. Additionally, an alternative XFEL architecture, which generates a series of high-current microbunches instead of a single bunch with uniformly high current along it, may suppress the most important emittance degradation effects in the accelerator and in the XFEL undulator. In this paper, we describe the needed dynamic mesoscale materials science capability, a MaRIE-class XFEL, and the proposed microbunched XFEL accelerator architecture in detail.