Beam Line Commissioning of a UV/VUV FEL at Jefferson Lab

Many novel applications in photon sciences require very high brightness and/or short pulses in the vacuum ultra-violet (VUV). Jefferson Lab has commissioned a UV oscillator with high gain and has transported the third harmonic of the UV to a user lab. The experimental performance of the UV FEL is much better than simulated performance in both gain and efficiency. This success is important for efforts to push towards higher gain FELs at short wavelengths where mirrors absorb strongly. We will report on efforts to characterize the UV laser and the VUV coherent harmonics as well as designs to lase directly in the VUV wavelength range.