Generation of intense, fully coherent radiation with wide spectral coverage has been a long-standing challenge for laser technologies. Several techniques have been developed in recent years to extend the spectral coverage in optical physics, but none of them hold the potential to produce X-ray laser pulses with very high-peak power. Urgent demands for intense X-ray light sources have prompted the development of free-electron lasers(FELs), which have been proved to be very useful tools in many scientific areas. In this paper, we give an overview of the basic principle of FELs, techniques for realizing fully coherent FELs, and the development of fully coherent FEL facilities in China.
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