Formation and acceleration of uniformly filled ellipsoidal electron bunches obtained via space-charge-driven expansion from a cesium-telluride photocathode

Abstract

We report the experimental generation, acceleration, and characterization of a uniformly filled electron bunch obtained via space-charge-driven expansion (often referred to as “blow-out regime”) in an L-band (1.3-GHz) radiofrequency photoinjector. The beam is photoemitted from a cesium-telluride semiconductor photocathode using a short (<200 fs) ultraviolet laser pulse. The produced electron bunches are characterized with conventional diagnostics and the signatures of their ellipsoidal character are observed. We especially demonstrate the production of ellipsoidal bunches with charges up to ∼0.5 nC corresponding to a ∼20-fold increase compared to previous experiments with metallic photocathodes.