Full-wave numerical modeling of an infrared free electron laser using FDTD/PIC

Free Electron Lasers (FELs) are a solution for providing intense THz and IR radiations with high brightness. Due to the low wall-plug efficiency of FEL facilities compared to lasers and other radiation sources, it is crucial and additionally very useful to develop complete simulation tools capable of accurately simulating a FEL process. The highly sophisticated dynamics involved in a FEL process was the main obstacle hindering the development of a general simulation tool for this problem. We present a numerical algorithm based on FDTD/PIC in a Lorentz boosted coordinate system which is able to completely simulate the FEL process. The developed software offers a suitable tool for the analysis of the FEL interaction without considering any of the usual approximations.