Production of a sub-10 fs electron beam with 10^{7} electrons

Abstract

We study the possibility to produce a 1.6 pC electron beam (10^{7} electrons) with a bunch length of less than 10 fs and a beam energy of a few MeV. Such a short, relativistic beam will be useful for an electron diffraction experiment with a 10 fs time resolution. An electron beam with 10^{7} electrons will allow a single-shot experiment with a laser pulse pump and an electron beam probe. In this design, an S-band photocathode gun is used for generating and accelerating a beam and a buncher consisting of two S-band four-cell cavities is used for temporally compressing the beam. Focusing solenoids control the beam transverse divergence and size at the sample. Numerical optimization is carried out to achieve a beam with a 4 fs full-width-at-half-maximum length, a 26 microradian root-mean-square divergence, and a 2 nm transverse coherence length at a 3.24 MeV beam energy. When state-of-the-art rf stability is considered, beam arrival time jitter at the sample is calculated to be about 10 fs.