Long lifetime of bialkali photocathodes operating in high gradient superconducting radio frequency gun.

High brightness, high charge electron beams are critical for a number of advanced accelerator applications. The initial emittance of the electron beam, which is determined by the mean transverse energy (MTE) and laser spot size, is one of the most important parameters determining the beam quality. The bialkali photocathodes illuminated by a visible laser have the advantages of high quantum efficiency (QE) and low MTE. Furthermore, Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) guns can operate in the continuous wave (CW) mode at high accelerating gradients, e.g. with significant reduction of the laser spot size at the photocathode. Combining the bialkali photocathode with the SRF gun enables generation of high charge, high brightness, and possibly high average current electron beams. However, integrating the high QE semiconductor photocathode into the SRF guns has been challenging. In this article, we report on the development of bialkali photocathodes for successful operation in the SRF gun with months-long lifetime while delivering CW beams with nano-coulomb charge per bunch. This achievement opens a new era for high charge, high brightness CW electron beams.

High-Brightness Continuous-Wave Electron Beams from Superconducting Radio-Frequency Photoemission Gun.

Continuous-wave photoinjectors operating at high accelerating gradients promise to revolutionize many areas of science and applications. They can establish the basis for a new generation of monochromatic x-ray free electron lasers, high-brightness hadron beams, or a new generation of microchip production. In this Letter we report on the record-performing superconducting rf electron gun with CsK_{2}Sb photocathode. The gun is generating high charge electron bunches (up to 10 nC/bunch) and low transverse emittances, while operating for months with a single photocathode. This achievement opens a new era in generating high-power beams with a very high average brightness.

Experimental Demonstration of Hadron Beam Cooling Using Radio-Frequency Accelerated Electron Bunches.

Cooling of beams of gold ions using electron bunches accelerated with radio-frequency systems was recently experimentally demonstrated in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Such an approach is new and opens the possibility of using this technique at higher energies than possible with electrostatic acceleration of electron beams. The challenges of this approach include generation of electron beams suitable for cooling, delivery of electron bunches of the required quality to the cooling sections without degradation of beam angular divergence and energy spread, achieving the required small angles between electron and ion trajectories in the cooling sections, precise velocity matching between the two beams, high-current operation of the electron accelerator, as well as several physics effects related to bunched-beam cooling. Here we report on the first demonstration of cooling hadron beams using this new approach.

Design of a high-bunch-charge 112-MHz superconducting RF photoemission electron source.

High-bunch-charge photoemission electron-sources operating in a continuous wave (CW) mode are required for many advanced applications of particle accelerators, such as electron coolers for hadron beams, electron-ion colliders, and free-electron lasers. Superconducting RF (SRF) has several advantages over other electron-gun technologies in CW mode as it offers higher acceleration rate and potentially can generate higher bunch charges and average beam currents. A 112 MHz SRF electron photoinjector (gun) was developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory to produce high-brightness and high-bunch-charge bunches for the coherent electron cooling proof-of-principle experiment. The gun utilizes a quarter-wave resonator geometry for assuring beam dynamics and uses high quantum efficiency multi-alkali photocathodes for generating electrons.

Self-induced harmonic generation in a storage-ring free-electron laser.

Coherent radiation from a relativistic electron beam is a valuable way to overcome the present limitations of conventional lasers and synchrotron radiation light sources. The typical scheme has electrons, directly from a linac, in a single-pass interaction with a laser pulse in the presence of a static undulator magnetic field. We demonstrate that a storage-ring free-electron laser can also achieve harmonic generation (down to 36.5 nm), presenting both experimental and theoretical results, and offer a reliable interpretation of the peculiar underlying physical processes involved.

Parity measurements of nuclear levels using a free-electron-laser generated gamma-ray beam.

The quality and intensity of gamma rays at the High Intensity gamma-ray Source are shown to make nuclear resonance fluorescence studies possible at a new level of precision and efficiency. First experiments have been carried out using an intense (10(7) gamma/s) beam of 100% linearly polarized, nearly monoenergetic, gamma rays on the semimagic nucleus (138)Ba. Negative parity quantum numbers have been assigned to 18 dipole excitations of (138)Ba between 5.5 MeV and 6.5 MeV from azimuthal gamma-intensity asymmetries.