Output coupling from x-ray free-electron laser cavities with intracavity beam splitters

Permeable mirrors are typically used for coupling photons out of laser cavities. A similar approach was proposed for output coupling photons from the cavities of x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) oscillators. One of the Bragg-reflecting crystal mirrors is thin, just a few extinction length, and is used as a permeable mirror with reduced reflectivity. However, this method is very often limited to extractions of only a few tenths of the intracavity power. Other cavity-based XFELs, such as the high-gain regenerative amplifier XFEL, require much higher outcoupling efficiency. Here, alternative schemes are proposed and analyzed for coupling x-ray photons out of XFEL cavities using intracavity Bragg-reflecting x-ray-transparent diamond crystal beam splitters, with all cavity crystal mirrors being thick and featuring high reflectivity. The intracavity beam splitters are efficient and flexible in terms of the amount of the power they are capable of coupling out of the cavity, an amount that can be varied promptly from zero to close to 100%. The stability and performance of the cavity are now separated from the outcoupling and can be developed and optimized individually. The schemes can be readily extended to multibeam outcoupling. Other types of beam splitters are discussed as well.