Photon beam diagnostics for vacuum-ultraviolet free electron lasers (VUV FEL) are critical to monitoring and understanding their performance characteristics. Due to the shot-to-shot fluctuations inherent in FELs based on the self amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) process, it is mandatory to use pulse-resolved diagnostics. We have designed a spectrograph based on a variable-line-spacing (VLS) plane grating and a phosphor/CCD to monitor single shot spectra of the free electron laser at DESY. The basic concept is to allow most of the beam to be reflected towards an experimental station while the first order light is dispersed and focused by the VLS grating onto the CCD. The spectrograph will cover the wavelength range 6.4–60 nm with the CCD accepting a bandwidth of ～10%. The grazing angle of incidence on the grating is 2°, the central line density is 1200 l/mm, and the distance grating-CCD is approximately 2 m. The linear variation of the grating line spacing combined with positioning the detector at the focal curve, allows zeroing the defocus in the full spectrograph wavelength range. The correction of higher order grating aberrations yields a theoretical resolving power greater than 20000 over the full length of the 20 mm CCD when the CCD is positioned tangent to the focal plane. Based on power considerations, a shallow blazed grating is the preferred profile. Efficiency calculations over the spectrograph range show that with a carbon coating the absolute efficiency for zeroth order is higher than 0.85 and the first order efficiency varies between 0.5% and 8%.
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