Electron bunch energy and phase feed-forward stabilization system for the Mark V RF-linac free-electron laser

An amplitude and phase compensation system has been developed and tested at the University of Hawai`i for the optimization of the RF drive system to the Mark V Free-Electron Laser. Temporal uniformity of the RF drive is essential to the generation of an electron beam suitable for optimal free-electron laser performance and the operation of an inverse Compton scattering x-ray source. The design of the RF measurement and compensation system is described in detail and the results of RF phase compensation are presented. Performance of the free-electron laser was evaluated by comparing the measured effects of phase compensation with the results of a computer simulation. Finally, preliminary results are presented for the effects of amplitude compensation on the performance of the complete system.