Terahertz-driven linear electron acceleration
The cost, size and availability of electron accelerators are dominated by the achievable accelerating gradient. Conventional high-brightness radio-frequency accelerating structures operate with 30–50 MeV m[superscript −1] gradients. Electron accelerators driven with optical or infrared sources have...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
Nature Publishing Group
2015
|
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100509 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5041-5210 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5444-9220 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8733-2555 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1678-7867 |
| Summary: | The cost, size and availability of electron accelerators are dominated by the achievable accelerating gradient. Conventional high-brightness radio-frequency accelerating structures operate with 30–50 MeV m[superscript −1] gradients. Electron accelerators driven with optical or infrared sources have demonstrated accelerating gradients orders of magnitude above that achievable with conventional radio-frequency structures. However, laser-driven wakefield accelerators require intense femtosecond sources and direct laser-driven accelerators suffer from low bunch charge, sub-micron tolerances and sub-femtosecond timing requirements due to the short wavelength of operation. Here we demonstrate linear acceleration of electrons with keV energy gain using optically generated terahertz pulses. Terahertz-driven accelerating structures enable high-gradient electron/proton accelerators with simple accelerating structures, high repetition rates and significant charge per bunch. These ultra-compact terahertz accelerators with extremely short electron bunches hold great potential to have a transformative impact for free electron lasers, linear colliders, ultrafast electron diffraction, X-ray science and medical therapy with X-rays and electron beams. |
|---|