Shaping ellipsoidal laser pulses in the scheme with black analog masks for photoinjector applications

Abstract

Today the electron beam emittance minimization race seems to slack due to insufficiency of beam shaping techniques. To fill the gap we propose a method for shaping a sharp 3D ellipsoidal boundary of laser pulses used in a photoinjector. To avoid distortions in the profiled laser beam, only black analog masks are exploited as shaping elements. A highly promising experimental distribution with a 3D boundary thickness better than 10% was obtained at the fundamental harmonic. The proposed scheme can be easily modified for multiplied harmonics of radiation.