Tunable, all-optical quasi-monochromatic Thomson X-ray source

Brilliant X-ray sources are of great interest for many research fields from biology via medicine to material research. The quest for a cost-effective, brilliant source with unprecedented temporal resolution has led to the recent realization of various high-intensity-laser-driven X-ray beam sources....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2014-06
Main Authors: Khrennikov, K, Wenz, J, Buck, A, J Xu, Heigoldt, M, Veisz, L, Karsch, S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Backscattering
Electron beams
Electron energy
Electrons
Energy distribution
Energy measurement
Laser beams
Lasers
Pulse duration
Temporal resolution
Tunable lasers
X ray detectors
X ray sources
X ray spectra
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Summary:Brilliant X-ray sources are of great interest for many research fields from biology via medicine to material research. The quest for a cost-effective, brilliant source with unprecedented temporal resolution has led to the recent realization of various high-intensity-laser-driven X-ray beam sources. Here we demonstrate the first all-laser-driven, energy-tunable and quasi-monochromatic X-ray source based on Thomson backscattering. This is a decisive step beyond previous results, where the emitted radiation exhibited an uncontrolled broad energy distribution. In the experiment, one part of the laser beam was used to drive a few-fs bunch of quasi-monoenergetic electrons from a Laser-Wakefield Accelerator (LWFA), while the remainder was scattered off the bunch in a near-counter-propagating geometry. When the electron energy was tuned from 10-50 MeV, narrow-bandwidth X-ray spectra peaking at 5-35keV were directly measured, limited in photon energy by the sensitivity curve of our X-ray detector. Due to the ultrashort LWFA electron bunches, these beams exhibit few-fs pulse duration.
ISSN:2331-8422