Terahertz-driven linear electron acceleration

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 8486
• Main Authors: Nanni, Emilio A., Huang, Wenqian R., Hong, Kyung-Han, Ravi, Koustuban, Fallahi, Arya, Moriena, Gustavo, Dwayne Miller, R. J., Kärtner, Franz X.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 06-10-2015; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Pub. Group
• Subjects: 639/766/1960/1137; 639/766/400/561; 70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; Electrons; fluids and plasma physics; Humanities and Social Sciences; Lasers; multidisciplinary; optical physics; Optics; physical sciences; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); X-rays; United States > US; Massachusetts; Germany
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9486

The cost, size and availability of electron accelerators are dominated by the achievable accelerating gradient. Conventional high-brightness radio-frequency accelerating structures operate with 30–50 MeV m
−1
gradients. Electron accelerators driven with optical or infrared sources have demonstrated accelerating gradients orders of magnitude above that achievable with conventional radio-frequency structures. However, laser-driven wakefield accelerators require intense femtosecond sources and direct laser-driven accelerators suffer from low bunch charge, sub-micron tolerances and sub-femtosecond timing requirements due to the short wavelength of operation. Here we demonstrate linear acceleration of electrons with keV energy gain using optically generated terahertz pulses. Terahertz-driven accelerating structures enable high-gradient electron/proton accelerators with simple accelerating structures, high repetition rates and significant charge per bunch. These ultra-compact terahertz accelerators with extremely short electron bunches hold great potential to have a transformative impact for free electron lasers, linear colliders, ultrafast electron diffraction, X-ray science and medical therapy with X-rays and electron beams.
Pulses of light offer a way to create particle accelerators that are a fraction of the size of conventional approaches. Here, the authors demonstrate the linear acceleration of electrons with kiloelectronvolt energy gain and in extremely short bunches using optically-generated terahertz pulses.