Challenges of dosimetry of ultra-short pulsed very high energy electron beams.

Very high energy electrons (VHEE) in the range from 100 to 250MeV have the potential of becoming an alternative modality in radiotherapy because of their improved dosimetric properties compared with 6-20MV photons generated by clinical linear accelerators (LINACs). VHEE beams have characteristics unlike any other beams currently used for radiotherapy: femtosecond to picosecond duration electron bunches, which leads to very high dose per pulse, and energies that exceed that currently used in clinical applications. Dosimetry with conventional online detectors, such as ionization chambers or diodes, is a challenge due to non-negligible ion recombination effects taking place in the sensitive volumes of these detectors. FLUKA and Geant4 Monte Carlo (MC) codes have been employed to study the temporal and spectral evolution of ultrashort VHEE beams in a water phantom. These results are complemented by ion recombination measurements employing an IBA CC04 ionization chamber for a 165MeV VHEE beam. For comparison, ion recombination has also been measured using the same chamber with a conventional 20MeV electron beam. This work demonstrates that the IBA CC04 ionization chamber exhibits significant ion recombination and is therefore not suitable for dosimetry of ultrashort pulsed VHEE beams applying conventional correction factors. Further study is required to investigate the applicability of ion chambers in VHEE dosimetry.

Generation of ultrafast terahertz radiation pulses on metallic nanostructured surfaces.

A resonant "incoherent" rectification process is presented relying on the excitation of surface plasmons on a nanostructured metal surface. Excitation of gold and silver films with 800-nm femtosecond laser pulses results in the emission of terahertz radiation with an angle-dependent efficiency and an approximately third-order power dependence. It is shown that the source of this terahertz pulse generation is the surface-plasmon-assisted multiphoton ionization and ponderomotive acceleration in the evanescent field of the surface plasmon. Simple models are used to understand the forces and dynamics near the surface.

200 ns pulse high-voltage supply for terahertz field emission.

We present a method of generating 200 ns high-voltage (up to 40 kV) pulses operating at repetition rates of up to 100 kHz, which may be synchronized with laser pulses. These supplies are simple to make and were developed for ultrafast terahertz pulse generation from GaAs photoconductive antennas using a high-repetition-rate regeneratively amplified laser. We also show an improvement in signal-to-noise ratio over a continuous dc bias field and application of the supply to terahertz pulse generation.

Terahertz-pulse emission through laser excitation of surface plasmons in a metal grating.

The second-order processes of optical-rectification and photoconduction are well known and widely used to produce ultrafast electromagnetic pulses in the terahertz frequency domain. We present a new form of rectification that relies on the excitation of surface plasmons in metal films deposited on a shallow grating. Multiphoton ionization and ponderomotive acceleration of electrons in the enhanced evanescent field of the surface plasmons results in a femtosecond current surge and emission of terahertz electromagnetic radiation. Using gold, this rectification process is third or higher-order in the incident field.