No Arabic abstract
A dielectric-loaded linac powered by THz-pulses is one of the key parts of the Attosecond X-ray Science: Imaging and Spectroscopy (AXSIS) project at DESY, Hamburg. As in conventional accelerators, the AXSIS linac is designed to have phase velocity equal to the speed of light which, in this case, is realized by tuning the thickness of the dielectric layer and the radius of the vacuum channel. Therefore, structure fabrication errors will lead to a change in the beam dynamics and beam quality. Additionally, errors in the bunch injection will also affect the acceleration process and can cause beam loss on the linac wall. This paper numerically investigates the process of electron beam acceleration in the AXSIS linac, taking into account the aforementioned errors. Particle tracking simulations were done using the code ECHO, which uses a low-dispersive algorithm for the field calculation and was specially adapted for the dielectric-loaded accelerating structures.
The AXSIS project (Attosecond X-ray Science: Imaging and Spectroscopy) aims to develop a THz-driven compact X-ray source for applications e.g. in chemistry and biology by using ultrafast coherent diffraction imaging and spectroscopy. The key components of AXSIS are the THz-driven electron gun and THz-driven dielectric loaded linear accelerator as well as an inverse Compton scattering scheme for the X-rays production. This paper is focused on the prototype of the THz-driven electron gun which is capable of accelerating electrons up to tens of keV. Such a gun was manufactured and tested at the test-stand at DESY. Due to variations in gun fabrication and generation of THz-fields the gun is not exactly operated at design parameters. Extended simulations have been performed to understand the experimentally observed performance of the gun. A detailed comparison between simulations and experimental measurements is presented in this paper.
In the framework of the Eupraxia Design Study an advanced accelerator facility EUPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB has been proposed to be realized at Frascati (Italy) Laboratories of INFN. Two advanced acceleration schemes will be applied, namely an ultimate high gradient 1 GeV X-band linac together with a plasma acceleration stage to provide accelerating gradients of the GeV/m order. A FEL scheme is foreseen to produce X-ray beams within 3-10 nm range. A 500-TW Laser system is also foreseen for electron and ion production experiments and a Compton backscattering Interaction is planned together with extraction beamlines at intermediate electron beam energy for neutron beams and THz radiation production. The electron beam dynamics studies in the linac are here presented together with the preliminary machine layout.
A special beam line for high energy electron radiography is designed, including achromat and imaging systems. The requirement of the angle and position correction on the target from imaging system can be approximately realized by fine tuning the quadrupoles used in the achromat. The imaging system is designed by fully considering the limitation from the laboratory and beam diagnostics devices space. Two kinds of imaging system are designed and both show a good performance of imaging by beam trajectory simulation. The details of the beam optical requirement and optimization design are presented here. The beam line is designed and prepared to install in Tsinghua university linear electron accelerator laboratory for further precise electron radiography experiment study.
We propose and demonstrate a novel method to produce few-femtosecond electron beam with relatively low timing jitter. In this method a relativistic electron beam is compressed from about 150 fs (rms) to about 7 fs (rms, upper limit) with the wakefield at THz frequency produced by a leading drive beam in a dielectric tube. By imprinting the energy chirp in a passive way, we demonstrate through laser-driven THz streaking technique that no additional timing jitter with respect to an external laser is introduced in this bunch compression process, a prominent advantage over the conventional method using radio-frequency bunchers. We expect that this passive bunching technique may enable new opportunities in many ultrashort-beam based advanced applications such as ultrafast electron diffraction and plasma wakefield acceleration.
We propose and demonstrate a novel method to reduce the pulse width and timing jitter of a relativistic electron beam through THz-driven beam compression. In this method the longitudinal phase space of a relativistic electron beam is manipulated by a linearly polarized THz pulse in a dielectric tube such that the bunch tail has a higher velocity than the bunch head, which allows simultaneous reduction of both pulse width and timing jitter after passing through a drift. In this experiment, the beam is compressed by more than a factor of four from 130 fs to 28 fs with the arrival time jitter also reduced from 97 fs to 36 fs, opening up new opportunities in using pulsed electron beams for studies of ultrafast dynamics. This technique extends the well known rf buncher to the THz frequency and may have a strong impact in accelerator and ultrafast science facilities that require femtosecond electron beams with tight synchronization to external lasers.