Terahertz-driven linear electron acceleration
Author(s)
Nanni, Emilio Alessandro; Hong, Kyung-Han; Ravi, Koustuban; Fallahi, Arya; Moriena, Gustavo; Dwayne Miller, R. J.; Huang, Wenqian Ronny; Kaertner, Franz X.; ... Show more Show less
DownloadNanni_Terahertz-driven.pdf (996.2Kb)
PUBLISHER_CC
Publisher with Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution
Terms of use
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
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.
Date issued
2015-10Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of ElectronicsJournal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Nanni, Emilio A., Wenqian R. Huang, Kyung-Han Hong, Koustuban Ravi, Arya Fallahi, Gustavo Moriena, R. J. Dwayne Miller, and Franz X. Kartner. “Terahertz-Driven Linear Electron Acceleration.” Nat Comms 6 (October 6, 2015): 8486. © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited
Version: Final published version
ISSN
2041-1723