SwissFEL is a compact, high-brilliance, soft and hard X-ray free electron laser (FEL) facility that started user operation in 2019. The facility is composed of two parallel beam lines seeded by a common linear accelerator (LINAC), and a two-bunch photo-injector. For the injector, an innovative dual-photocathode laser scheme has been developed based on state-of-the-art ytterbium femtosecond laser systems. In this paper, we describe the performance of the SwissFEL photocathode drive lasers (PCDLs), the pulse-shaping capabilities as well as the versatility of the systems, which allow many different modes of operation of SwissFEL. The full control over the SwissFEL electron bunch properties via the unique architecture of the PCDLs will enable in the future the advent of more-advanced FEL modes; these modes include, but are not restricted to, the generation of single or trains of sub-femtosecond FEL pulses, multi-color FEL and finally, the generation of fully coherent X-ray pulses via laser-based seeding.

Accurate timing synchronization on the femtosecond timescale is an essential installation for time-resolved experiments at free-electron lasers (FELs) such as FLASH and the upcoming European XFEL. Conventional RF timing systems suffer from RF attenuation for such long distances and have reached to date a limit for synchronization precision of around 100 femtoseconds. An optical synchronization system is used at FLASH since a decade and is based on the distribution of femtosecond laser pulses over actively stabilized optical fibers. The European XFEL has raised the demands due to its large number of stabilized optical fibers and a length of 3400 m. The increased lengths for the stabilized optical fibers necessitated major advancement in precision to achieve the requirement of less than 10 femtosecond precision. This paper reports on the status of the laser-based synchronization system at the European XFEL.

At today’s free-electron lasers, high-resolution electron bunch arrival time measurements have become increasingly more important in fast feedback systems for a timing jitter reduction down to the femtosecond level as well as for time-resolved pump-probe experiments. This is fulfilled by arrival time monitors which employ an electro-optical detectionschemebymeansofsynchronisedultrashortlaserpulses. Even more, at FLASH and the European XFEL the measurement has to cover a wide range of bunch charges from 1nC down to 20pC with equally sub-10fs resolution. To meet these requirements, recently a high bandwidth pickup electrode with a cut-off frequency above 40GHz has been developed. These pickups are installed at the macro-pulsed SRF accelerator of the free-electron laser FLASH and at the macro-pulsed continuous wave SRF accelerator ELBE. In this paper we present an evaluation of the pickup performance by direct signal measurements with high bandwidth oscilloscopes and by use of the electro-optical arrival time monitor.

In this paper we present recent progress on the integration and implementation of the OPTical REFerence Module (REFM-OPT) for the free-electron lasers FLASH and the European XFEL. In order to achieve high energy stability and low arrival time jitter of the electron beam, the accelerator requires an accurate Low-Level RF (LLRF) field regulation and a sophisticated synchronization scheme for various devices along the facility. The REFM-OPT is a 19” module which is responsible for resynchronizing the 1.3 GHz reference signal for the LLRF distributed by coaxial cables to a phase-stable signal of the optical synchronization system. The module provides a 1.3 GHz output signal with low phase noise and high long-term stability. Several sub-components of the REFM-OPT designed specifically for this module are described in detail. The readout electronics of the highprecision Laser-to-RF (L2RF) phase detector are presented as well as the integration of this key component into the 19” module. Additionally, we focus on design solutions which assure phase stability and synchronization of the 1.3 GHz signal at several high power outputs of the module.