Terahertz-driven linear electron acceleration.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26439410.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms9486 and PMC identifier 4600735.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
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(-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.