One way only to synchrotron light sources upgrade?

The last decade has seen a renaissance of machine‐physics studies and technological advancements that aim to upgrade at least 15 synchrotron light sources worldwide to diffraction‐limited storage rings. This is expected to improve the average spectral brightness and transversally coherent fraction of photons by several orders of magnitude in the soft‐ and hard‐X‐ray wavelength range, at the expense of pulse durations longer than ∼80 ps FWHM. This paper discusses the compatibility of schemes for the generation of sub‐picosecond photon‐pulse durations in synchrotron light sources with standard multi‐bunch user operation and, in particular, diffraction‐limited electron optics design. The question of this compatibility is answered taking into consideration the storage ring beam energy and the constraint of existing synchrotrons' infrastructure. An alternative scheme for the upgrade of medium‐energy synchrotron light sources to diffraction‐limited storage rings and the simultaneous production of picosecond‐long photon pulses in a high‐gain free‐electron laser scheme are illustrated. The compatibility of sub‐picosecond‐long photon pulse production with multi‐bunch, multi‐user operation of synchrotron light sources, and in particular with diffraction limit electron optics designs in the next storage rings generation, is investigated. An alternative method for the time‐compression of electron bunches, which is transparent to storage rings operation, is illustrated.