Generation of sub-picosecond electron bunches from RF photoinjectors (original) (raw)

A Velocity Bunching Scheme for Creating Sub-Picosecond Electron Bunches from an RF Photocathode Gun

2011

Sub-picosecond electron bunches are in demand for various applications including Free Electron Lasers and electron diffraction experiments. Typically, for Free Electron Lasers, a multiple picosecond scale bunch is produced from a photoinjector with compression achieved via one or more magnetic chicanes by providing an appropriate energy chirp to the bunch in the preceding linac sections. This approach is complex, requiring many components, often including a higher harmonic linac section to linearise the longitudinal phase-space, and careful tuning in order to minimise emittance blow-up due to coherent synchrotron radiation. We present a scheme to deliver sub-picosecond electron bunches, based on a normal conducting RF gun and two short linac sections, one for providing velocity bunching and the second to capture the compressed bunch and accelerate to tens of MeV where the beam properties are then essentially frozen.

Femtosecond electron bunches from an RF-gun

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 2004

Sub-picosecond electron pulses become a tool of increasing importance to study dynamics at an atomic level. Such electron pulses can be used directly or be converted into intense coherent far infrared radiation or equally short X-ray pulses. In principle, sub-picosecond electron pulses can be obtained in large, high-energy electron linear accelerator systems by repeatedly applying an energy slew and magnetic compression. Another process is the production of short electron pulses at low energies from an RF-gun with a thermionic cathode together with a bunch compressing amagnet. In this paper, we present a systematic analysis of capabilities and limits of sub-picosecond electron pulses from such a source. We discuss particular parameter choices as well as the impact of geometric and electric specifications on the 6-dimensional phase space electron distribution. Numerical beam simulations with the computer code PARMELA are performed including effects and limitations due to space charge forces. While the production of femtosecond electron bunches is of primary concern, we also consider the preservation of such short bunches along a beam transport line.

Design of the Production and Measurement of Ultra- Short Electron Bunches from an S-Band RF Photoinjector

The Electron Beam Test Facility (EBTF) is planned for installation in late 2012 at Daresbury Laboratory. An Sband RF photoinjector provides ultrashort, low emittance electron bunches up to 6 MeV. A suite of diagnostics has been designed to fully characterise the bunches. A particular focus has been on producing and measuring bunch lengths less than 100 fs. This can be achieved with a multi-cell standing wave S-band transverse deflecting cavity. Operating such a cavity with low energy electrons provides certain challenges which are discussed in this paper with respect to beam dynamic simulations.

Ideal waterbag electron bunches from an RF photogun

The use of femtosecond photoemission laser pulses in high-gradient RF photoguns enables the production of electron bunches whose rest-frame bunch length is much smaller than the bunch radius (so-called 'pancake' bunches) during a significant part of the acceleration path. Recently, we have shown for a constant and uniform ac-celeration field that by proper radial shaping of the pho-toemission laser pulses, a pancake bunch can be created that will evolve automatically into a uniformly filled 3D el-lipsoid, i.e. into the ideal bunch. In this paper we show that the same holds for a realistic, non-uniform and time-dependent, RF acceleration field with magnetic focussing.

Multi-Bunch Electron Beam Generation Based on CS-Te Photocathode RF-Gun at Waseda University

2010

At Waseda University, we have been studying a high quality electron beam generation and its application experiments with Cs-Te photocathode RF-Gun. We have already succeeded in generating a stable high-charged singlebunch electron beam. To generate more intense electron beam, we designed a multi-bunch electron linac and developed the multi-pulse UV laser which irradiates to the cathode. The target values of the number of electron bunch and bunch charges are 100bunches/train and 800pC/bunch, respectively. In addition, we adopted the method of the amplitude modulation of the incident RF pulse to the S-band klystron in order to compensate the energy difference in each bunch because of the slow rise time of acceleration voltage in cavity and beam loading effect in the accelerating structure.

Femtosecond electron beam generation by S-band laser photocathode RF gun and linac

AIP Conference Proceedings, 1999

A laser photocathode RF electron gun was installed in the second linac of the S-band twin linac system of Nuclear Engineering Research Laboratory(NERL) of University of Tokyo in August in 1997. Since then, the behavior of the new gun has been tested and the characteristic parameters have been evaluated. At the exit of the gun, the energy is 3.5 MeV, the charge per bunch 1-2 nC, the pulse width is 10 ps(FWHM), respectively, for 6 MW RF power supply from a klystron. The electron bunch is accelerated up to 17 MeV and horizontal and vertical normalized emittances of 3 x mm.mrad are achieved. Then, the bunch is compressed to be 440 fs(FWHM) with 0.35 nC by the chicane-type magnetic pulse compressor. The linac with the gun and a new femto-and picosecond laser system is planned to be installed for femtosecond pulseradiolysis for radiation chemistry in 1999.

Radial bunch compression: Path-length compensation in an rf photoinjector with a curved cathode

Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams, 2006

Electron bunch lengthening due to space-charge forces in state-of-the-art rf photoinjectors limits the minimum bunch length attainable to several hundreds of femtoseconds. Although this can be alleviated by increasing the transverse dimension of the electron bunch, a larger initial radius causes path-length differences in both the rf cavity and in downstream focusing elements. In this paper we show that a curved cathode virtually eliminates these undesired effects. Detailed numerical simulations confirm that significantly shorter bunches are produced by an rf photogun with a curved cathode compared to a flat cathode device. The proposed novel method will be used to provide 100 fs duration electron bunches for injection into a laser-driven plasma wakefield accelerator.

Advanced Research Electron Accelerator Laboratory Based on Photocathode RF Gun

2011

The low energy sub-picosecond duration electron bunches with extremely small beam emittance have wide applications in advanced research of new accelerator concepts, radiation physics, time-resolved pulse radiolysis and electron diffraction. The conceptual design and experimental program of the Advanced Research Electron Accelerator Laboratory (AREAL) at CANDLE based on photocathode RF gun are presented. The AREAL design implies single and multibunch operation modes with variable beam energy of 5-20 MeV and 10-100 pC bunch charge. The design is based on 3 GHz 1.6 cells RF gun followed by S-Band accelerating linac.

Novel Concepts of a High-Brightness Photoinjector RF Gun

2018

We propose here a program to design and manufacture a high performance, advanced source of electrons having high beam brightness (>10¹⁶ A/m²) and high bunch charge (~100 pC). Three innovations are being considered: 1) the use of a high peak cathode field, short-pulse RF gun; 2) the use of multi-layered diamond photocathode at low temperature; and 3) the utilization of THz ultrafast field emission gating. High peak cathode field is necessary to achieve a high brightness (low emittance) beam to be accelerated to relativistic energies before space-charge effects lengthen the bunch. The multilayered diamond photocathode is needed to obtain high QE with long wavelength laser in the first doped layer, beam cooling in the next layer, and negative electron affinity at the emission layer. High field single cycle THz pulses, produced by means of laser light rectification in a nonlinear crystal, allow to avoid a UV laser, provide high field emission charge (up to nC) and ~1 GV/m pre-acceler...

Emittance Reduction of RF Photoinjector Generated Electron Beams by Transverse Laser Beam Shaping

Journal of Physics: Conference Series

Laser pulse shaping is one of the key elements to generate low emittance electron beams with RF photoinjectors. Ultimately high performance can be achieved with ellipsoidal laser pulses, but 3-dimensional shaping is challenging. High beam quality can also be reached by simple transverse pulse shaping, which has demonstrated improved beam emittance compared to a transversely uniform laser in the ‘pancake’ photoemission regime. In this contribution we present the truncation of a Gaussian laser at a radius of approximately one sigma in the intermediate (electron bunch length directly after emission about the same as radius) photoemission regime with high acceleration gradients (up to 60 MV/m). This type of electron bunch is used e.g. at the European XFEL and FLASH free electron lasers at DESY, Hamburg site and is being investigated in detail at the Photoinjector Test facility at DESY in Zeuthen (PITZ). Here we present ray-tracing simulations and experimental data of a laser beamline up...