Huang, Z. MOB02 FEL undulator electron photon radiation 2015 2015-12 The X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs), with nine to ten orders of magnitude improvement in peak brightness over the third-generation light sources, have demonstrated remarkable scientific capabilities. Despite the early success, X-ray FELs can still undergo dramatic transformations with accelerator and FEL R&D. In this talk, I will show examples of recent R&D efforts to increase X-ray coherence and brightness, to obtain better control of X-ray temporal and spectral properties, and to develop concepts for compact coherent sources.