Generation of ultrashort coherent vacuum ultraviolet pulses using electron storage rings: a new bright light source for experiments.

We demonstrate for the first time that seeded harmonic generation on electron storage rings can produce coherent optical pulses in the vacuum ultraviolet spectral range. The experiment is performed at Elettra, where coherent pulses are generated at 132 nm, with a duration of about 100 fs. The light source has a repetition rate of 1 kHz and adjustable polarization; it is very bright, with a peak power several orders of magnitude above that of spontaneous synchrotron radiation. Owing to high stability, the source is used in a test photoemission electron microscopy experiment. We anticipate that seeded harmonic generation on storage rings can lead to unprecedented developments in time-resolved femtosecond spectroscopy and microscopy.