Electron channelling radiation: first steps towards a bright and tunable X-ray source

Abstract

A brief survey of the first experimental steps to produce an intense and tunable photon source in the kiloelectronvolt region using electron channelling radiation in silicon and diamond crystals, produced at the continuous-wave 10 MeV electron beam from the new superconducting Darmstadt electron linear accelerator (S-DALINAC), is given. Quite promising results have been obtained by bombarding a diamond crystal of 50 μm thickness with electrons between 3.0 and 7.1 MeV at electron beam currents up to 30 μA. Because of the low emittance of the high current electron beam it has become possible for the first time to produce channelling radiation in the region of a few kiloelectronvolts with an intensity of 2 × 1010 photons s−1 in an X-ray energy window of 10%. This is several orders of magnitude higher than what has been observed before.