W. Ronny Huang
, Emilio A. Nanni
, Koustuban Ravi
, Kyung-Han Hong
, Arya Fallahi
, Liang Jie Wong
,Phillip D. Keathley
, Luis E. Zapata
& Franz X. Kärtner
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep14899
Femtosecond electron bunches with keV energies and eV energy spread are needed by condensed matter physicists to resolve state transitions in carbon nanotubes, molecular structures, organic salts, and charge density wave materials. These semirelativistic electron sources are not only of interest for ultrafast electron diffraction, but also for electron energy-loss spectroscopy and as a seed for x-ray FELs. Thus far, the output energy spread (hence pulse duration) of ultrafast electron guns has been limited by the achievable electric field at the surface of the emitter, which is 10 MV/m for DC guns and 200 MV/m for RF guns. A single-cycle THz electron gun provides a unique opportunity to not only achieve GV/m surface electric fields but also with relatively low THz pulse energies, since a single-cycle transform-limited waveform is the most efficient way to achieve intense electric fields. Here, electron bunches of 50 fC from a flat copper photocathode are accelerated from rest to tens of eV by a microjoule THz pulse with peak electric field of 72 MV/m at 1 kHz repetition rate. We show that scaling to the readily-available GV/m THz field regime would translate to monoenergetic electron beams of ~100 keV.
W. Ronny Huang, Emilio A. Nanni, Koustuban Ravi, Kyung-Han Hong, Liang Jie Wong, Phillip D. Keathley, A. Fallahi, Luis Zapata, Franz X. Kärtner
http://arxiv-web3.library.cornell.edu/abs/1409.8668
Electron sources at keV-MeV energies are indispensable for applications such as ultrafast electron diffraction, x-ray generation, and electron energy-loss spectroscopy. However, the accessibility and size of current accelerators based on radio-frequency (RF) technology are limited by the achievable electric fields. Terahertz based accelerators promise unprecedented compactness compared to current RF accelerators due to the intense electric fields that can be applied in the accelerating structures. Here, electron bunches of 50 fC from a flat copper photocathode are accelerated from rest to a mean energy of 18 eV by a single-cycle THz field with peak electric field gradient of 72 MV/m at 1 kHz repetition rate. Scaling of the THz field into the gigavolt per meter regime would translate to electron energies of ~100 keV. Furthermore, in combination with the recent demonstration of a THz linear accelerator (linac), this is a milestone toward a millimeter- to centimeter-scale relativistic electron source.
