Bunch Length Measurement Research Articles

Measurements of wake-induced electron beam deflection in a dechirper at the Linac Coherent Light Source

The RadiaBeam/SLAC dechirper, a structure consisting of pairs of flat, metallic, corrugated plates, %a corrugated structure in flat geometry, has been installed just upstream of the undulators in the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). As a dechirper, with the beam passing between the plates on axis, longitudinal wakefields are induced that can remove unwanted energy chirp in the beam. However, with the beam passing off axis, strong transverse wakes are also induced. This mode of operation has already been used for the production of intense, multi-color photon beams using the Fresh-Slice technique, and is being used to develop a diagnostic for attosecond bunch length measurements. Here we measure, as function of offset, the strength of the transverse wakefields that are excited between the two plates, and also for the case of the beam passing near to a single plate. We compare with analytical formulas from the literature, and find good agreement. This report presents the first systematic measurements of the transverse wake strength in a dechirper, one that has been excited by a bunch with the short pulse duration and high energy found in an X-ray free electron laser.

Beam tuning and bunch length measurement in the bunch compression operation at the cERL

Realization of a short bunch beam by manipulating the longitudinal phase space distribution with a finite longitudinal dispersion following an off-crest acceleration is a widely used technique. The technique was applied in a compact test accelerator of an energy-recovery linac scheme for compressing the bunch length at the return loop. A diagnostic system utilizing coherent transition radiation was developed for the beam tuning and for estimating the bunch length. By scanning the beam parameters, we experimentally found the best condition for the bunch compression. The RMS bunch length of 250±50 fs was obtained at a bunch charge of 2 pC. This result confirmed the design and the tuning procedure of the bunch compression operation for the future energy-recovery linac (ERL).

Longitudinal bunch length measurement of RFQ beam using in-house developed detector system

We report here the bunch width measurement of 98keV/u ion beam accelerated through a 3.4 m long 37.8 MHz Radio Frequency Quadruple (RFQ) linac using a minimally interceptive approach. The detector system for this measurement has been indigenously developed and is based on secondary electron emission from tungsten filament on being hit by ion beam, followed by a capacitive loaded helical resonator cavity. A Channeltron Electron Multiplier (CEM) detector is used for detection of electrons. The design, development and optimization of various parameters of bunch width detector system along with its deflector cavity applicable in the low frequency regime (few tens of MHz) have been discussed. The measured bunch profile of accelerated Nitrogen beam from RFQ is in close agreement with the estimated profile obtained via simulation.

Effects of energy chirp on bunch length measurement in linear accelerator beams

The effects of assumptions about bunch properties on the accuracy of the measurement method of the bunch length based on radio frequency deflectors (RFDs) in electron linear accelerators (LINACs) are investigated. In particular, when the electron bunch at the RFD has a non-negligible energy chirp (i.e. a correlation between the longitudinal positions and energies of the particle), the measurement is affected by a deterministic intrinsic error, which is directly related to the RFD phase offset. A case study on this effect in the electron LINAC of a gamma beam source at the Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) is reported. The relative error is estimated by using an electron generation and tracking (ELEGANT) code to define the reference measurements of the bunch length. The relative error is proved to increase linearly with the RFD phase offset. In particular, for an offset of , corresponding to a vertical centroid offset at a screen of about 1 mm, the relative error is 4.5%.

Lattice considerations for the use of an X-band transverse deflecting structure (TDS) at SINBAD, DESY

An X-band TDS is a well-known device for the characterization of the longitudinal properties of an electron bunch in a linear accelerator. It is planned that a novel X-band TDS with variable polarization will be installed within the next few years at SINBAD, an upcoming accelerator R&D facility at DESY. There are several measurements that can be performed with the TDS, each with specific optics requirements to reach the highest possible resolution and keep induced energy spread to a tolerable level. Quadrupoles will be installed between the TDS and the screen to help satisfy these conditions. In this paper, the requirements for the bunch length measurements, a novel 3D charge density reconstruction technique and slice energy measurements are discussed and some simulation results for the slice energy measurement using example lattices are presented.

Injection transient study using a two-frequency bunch length measurement system at the SSRF

The bunch length can be measured by comparison of two frequency components of a synchrotron beam signal. An online bunch length measurement system has been implemented based on this method. Working frequencies of 3 GHz and 500 MHz were selected, and the raw data was acquired by digital oscilloscope and was resampled and analyzed using the MATLAB software platform at bunch-by-bunch rate. The constructed system was employed to study the bunch length synchronous oscillation phenomenon during injection. The beam experiments demonstrated a time resolution of less than 0.5 ps.

Design and development of deflector cavity for the non- interceptive bunch length measurement system

A non-interceptive bunch length detector system for the measurement of bunch width of accelerated beam has been designed and developed. This detector system is based on emitted secondary electrons produced by a primary ion beam hitting a thin tungsten wire placed in the beam path.The measurement of the longitudinal beam shape for wide range of beam energy, intensity as well as ion species is possible with this detector. One of the main components of the detector system is a RF deflector cavity used to deflect electrons in correlation with rf phase of the accelerator. The detailed design, development with measurement results of the deflector cavity resonator have been reported in this paper.

Measurement of<20 fsbunch length using coherent transition radiation

By monitoring coherent transition radiation (CTR) with a Michelson interferometer, bunch length measurement was investigated. Less-than-20-fs electron bunches were generated by a photocathode-based linear accelerator (linac) and a magnetic bunch compressor. From the femtosecond electron bunch of 2.1 pC and 32 MeV, CTR was measured using a Michelson interferometer that had two detectors with different spectral ranges, which enhanced the detection spectral range of CTR (ranging from 3 to 50 THz) and enabled us to determine the bunch length of the electron bunch. A model based on the interferometer's frequency sensitivity was proposed and introduced to analyze the measured interferograms. The measured interferograms and the frequency spectra were explained using the model.

Influence of the Beam Divergence on Diffraction Radiation

Nowadays the achievements in accelerator physics allows us to operate with evergrowing energy of the particles beams. However, the increase of the beam energy requests new issues to be resolved. For instance, it becomes necessary to develop new techniques for beam diagnostics. One of the promising solutions for beam diagnostics is based on diffraction radiation (DR).In this work similar to the methods of bunch length measurement based on transition radiation, the longitudinal size of a bunch is retrieved from the dependence of the DR intensity on the wavelength of radiation. Such dependence is expressed by so-called form-factor, which in turn depends on the beam parameters. Influence of the beam divergence on the form-factor of a beam has been examined in this work.

Electron bunch length measurement with a wakefield radiation decelerator

In this paper, we propose a novel method to measure the electron bunch length with a dielectric wakefield radiation (DWR) decelerator which is composed of two dielectric-lined waveguides (DLWs) and an electron spectrometer. When an electron beam passes through a DLW, the DWR is excited which leads to an energy loss of the electron beam. The energy loss is found to be largely dependent on the electron bunch length and can be easily measured by an electron spectrometer which is essential for a normal accelerator facility. Our study shows that this method has a high resolution and a great simplicity.

Longitudinal emittance blowup in the large hadron collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) relies on Landau damping for longitudinal stability. To avoid decreasing the stability margin at high energy, the longitudinal emittance must be continuously increased during the acceleration ramp. Longitudinal blowup provides the required emittance growth. The method was implemented through the summer of 2010. Band-limited RF phase-noise is injected in the main accelerating cavities during the whole ramp of about 11min. Synchrotron frequencies change along the energy ramp, but the digitally created noise tracks the frequency change. The position of the noise-band, relative to the nominal synchrotron frequency, and the bandwidth of the spectrum are set by pre-defined constants, making the diffusion stop at the edges of the demanded distribution. The noise amplitude is controlled by feedback using the measurement of the average bunch length. This algorithm reproducibly achieves the programmed bunch length of about 1.2ns22Bunch length is defined as the 4σ value in this paper., at flat top with low bunch-to-bunch scatter and provides a stable beam for physics coast. The noise can be injected either in the beam phase loop or directly in the cavity voltage set point. These two different technical implementations are presented and their respective advantages analyzed. The performance of the algorithm and its further applications are also presented in this paper.

Absolute bunch length measurement using coherent diffraction radiation.

The longitudinal electron beam properties are of crucial importance for many types of frontier accelerators, from storage rings to free electron lasers and energy recovery linacs. For the online control of the machine and its stable operation, nondestructive shot by shot bunch length measurements are needed. Among the various instrumentations proposed and installed in accelerators worldwide, the ones based on the measurement of the coherent radiation power represent the simplest and the more robust tools for operational control. The major limitation of these systems is that they usually can provide only relative bunch length estimation. In this Letter we present a novel experimental methodology to self-calibrate a simple equipment based on diffraction radiation from a gap providing a measurement of the second order moment of the longitudinal distribution. We present the theoretical basis of the proposed approach and validate it through a detailed campaign of measurements.

Measurement of bunch length in Indus-1 storage ring using fast photodiode

The length of electron bunches in a storage ring is an important parameter for both synchrotron radiation users and accelerator physicists. Several methods are used for measurements of bunch length using electronic and optical instruments. We have measured temporal profile of synchrotron radiation emitted from dipole magnet of Indus-1 by using fast photodiode. Bunch length is calculated by assuming gaussian profile for the particles inside bunch. The results show that bunch length is increasing with the decrease of gap voltage of RF cavity. These measurements were carried out at low beam current; at high voltage results are in close agreement with theory and the values estimated using ZAP code. In the second experiment, the results show that bunch length increases with the increase of beam current inside the bunch, and above threshold current, it follows Chao-Gareyte scaling law. The longitudinal broadband impedance for Indus-1 SRS was estimated using Keil-Schnell criterion and results were compared with theoretical estimated values using ZAP code.

Synchroscan streak camera imaging at a 15-MeV photoinjector with emittance exchange

At the Fermilab A0 photoinjector facility, bunch-length measurements of the laser micropulse and the e-beam micropulse have been done in the past with a fast single-sweep module of the Hamamatsu C5680 streak camera with an intrinsic shot-to-shot trigger jitter of 10–20ps. We have upgraded the camera system with the synchroscan module tuned to 81.25MHz to provide synchronous summing capability with less than 1.5ps FWHM trigger jitter and a phase-locked delay box to provide phase stability of ∼1ps over 10s of minutes. These steps allowed us to measure both the UV laser pulse train at 263nm and the e-beam via optical transition radiation (OTR). Due to the low electron beam energies and OTR signals, we typically summed over 50 micropulses with 0.25–1nC per micropulse. The phase-locked delay box allowed us to assess chromatic temporal effects and instigated another upgrade to an all-mirror input optics barrel. In addition, we added a slow sweep horizontal deflection plug-in unit to provide dual-sweep capability for the streak camera. We report on a series of measurements made during the commissioning of these upgrades including bunch-length and phase effects using the emittance exchange beamline and simultaneous imaging of a UV drive laser component, OTR, and the 800nm diagnostics laser.

Second-order autocorrelation of XUV FEL pulses via time resolved two-photon single ionization of He

Second-order autocorrelation spectra of XUV free-electron laser pulses from the Spring-8 Compact SASE Source (SCSS) have been recorded by time and momentum resolved detection of two-photon single ionization of He at 20.45 eV using a split-mirror delay-stage in combination with high-resolution recoil-ion momentum spectroscopy (COLTRIMS). From the autocorrelation trace we extract a coherence time of 8 ± 2 fs and a mean pulse duration of 28 ± 5 fs, much shorter than estimations based on electron bunch-length measurements. Simulations within the partial coherence model [Opt. Lett. 35, 3441 (2010)] are in agreement with experiment if a pulse-front tilt across the FEL beam diameter is taken into account that leads to a temporal shift of about 6 fs between both pulse replicas.

Bunch length measurement at Tsinghua Thomson scattering X-ray source

The length of electron beam from a photocathode RF gun is determined by a spectrometer, according to the relative energy spread induced by the bunch length during the acceleration in a linac. For a photocathode RF gun, different laser injected phase and beam charge are studied. The compression is changed for the different laser phases, as from 10° to 30°, and the bunch length is lengthened due to the strong longitudinal space charge force, caused by the increased charge.

Electro-optical sampling non-synchronous delay scanning measurement of electron beam bunch length at BFEL

The Electro-optical sampling delay scanning technique can be used for electron beam bunch length measurement. A novel non-synchronous delay scanning technique based on the electro-optical sampling measurements is presented. Based on Beijing Free Electron Laser (BFEL), the electron beam bunch length was measured with the electro-optical sampling technique for the first time in China. The result shows that the electron beam bunch length at BFEL is about 5.6 ± 1.2 ps.

Bunch length measurement using a traveling wave RF deflector

RF deflectors can be used for bunch length measurement with high resolution. This paper describes a completed S-band traveling wave RF deflector and the bunch length measurement of the electron beam produced by the photocathode RF gun of the Shanghai DUV-FEL facility. This is the first time that such a transverse RF deflector has been developed and used to measure the bunch length of picosecond order in China. The deflector's VSWR is 1.06, the whole attenuation 0.5 dB, and the bandwidth 4.77 MHz for VSWR less than 1.1. With a laser pulse width of 8.5 ps, beam energy of 4.2 MeV, and bunch charge of 0.64 nC, the bunch lengths for different RF input power into the deflector were measured, and an averaged rms bunch length of 5.25 ps was obtained. A YAG crystal is used as a screen downstream of the deflector, with the calibrated value of 1 pix = 136 μm.

Preliminary result of bunch length measurement using a modified Michelson interferometer

Based on the femtosecond accelerator device which was built at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP), recently a modified far infrared Michelson interferometer has been developed to measure the length of electron bunches via the optical autocorrelation method. Compared with our former normal Michelson interferometer, we use a hollow retroreflector instead of a flat mirror as the reflective mirror. The experimental setup and results of the bunch length measurement will be described in this paper.

RF deflecting cavity for bunch length measurement in Tsinghua Thomson scattering X-ray source

An RF deflecting cavity used for bunch length measurement has been designed and fabricated at Tsinghua University for the Thomson Scattering X-Ray Source. The cavity is a 2856 MHz, π-mode, 3-cell standing-wave cavity, to diagnose the 3.5 MeV beam produced by photocathode electron gun. With a larger power source, the same cavity will again be used to measure the accelerated beam with energy of 50 MeV before colliding with the laser pulse.The RF design using MAFIA for both the cavity shape and the power coupler is reviewed, followed by presenting the fabrication procedure and bench measurement results of two cavities.