Overview of Photoinjectors

Abstract

High‐brightness electron beam sources play a crucial role in many advanced acceleration schemes as well as linac‐based light sources such as Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) based light sources and FELs. Three varieties electron sources (photo, thermionic, and field emission) the photoinjector is especially attractive due to its innate ability to control the time structure of intense electron bunches with low transverse and longitudinal emittance. In all cases, the quality of the bunch begins with the intrinsic emittance and time response of the photocathode, and we discuss the trade‐offs involved between the various material choices. A variety of longitudinal laser pulse‐shaping techniques are currently being developed to linearize space charge forces or create trains of ultra‐short bunches. The emittance compensation technique mitigates the growth of the projected emittance due to the linear space charge force while the bunch is accelerated and compressed in an injector. While the normal conducting rf photoinjector is the workhorse of this field, the dc photoinjector is being pushed to its high‐voltage limits, and the year 2010 promises to be a critical year for the superconducting rf photoinjector. Parallel to the development of the hardware, rapid progress has also been made with modeling codes, theory, and bench marking of diagnostics. We attempt to give both a tutorial of photoinjectors and a review of the current state of the art in this rapidly developing field.