Demonstration of sub-GV/m accelerating field in a photoemission electron gun powered by nanosecond X-band radio-frequency pulses

Demonstration of sub-GV/m accelerating field in a photoemission electron gun powered by nanosecond X-band radio-frequency pulses

Radio-frequency (rf) photoemission electron guns operating at higher accelerating gradients offer a pathway to produce brighter electron bunches. Brighter beams are expected to revolutionize many areas of science: they could form the backbone of next-generation compact x-ray free-electron lasers or...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: W. H. Tan, S. Antipov, D. S. Doran, G. Ha, C. Jing, E. Knight, S. Kuzikov, W. Liu, X. Lu, P. Piot, J. G. Power, J. Shao, C. Whiteford, E. E. Wisniewski
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2022-08-01
Series:Physical Review Accelerators and Beams
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.25.083402
Description
Summary:Radio-frequency (rf) photoemission electron guns operating at higher accelerating gradients offer a pathway to produce brighter electron bunches. Brighter beams are expected to revolutionize many areas of science: they could form the backbone of next-generation compact x-ray free-electron lasers or provide coherent ultrafast quantum electron probes. We report on the experimental demonstration of an rf photoemission electron source supporting an accelerating field close to 400  MV/m at the photocathode surface without major rf breakdown or significant dark current over a 3-week experimental run. This unprecedented gradient was achieved by operating the gun in a new regime with short rf pulses, ∼9  ns X-band (11.7 GHz). The demonstrated paradigm provides a viable path to form relativistic electron beams with unprecedented brightness.
ISSN:2469-9888

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