We present the design and optimization of a new instrument for ultrafast electron diffraction and imaging. The proposed instrument merges the high peak current and relativistic electron energies of radio-frequency guns, with the high average electron flux of static electron microscopes, extending the beam parameter space achievable with relativistic electrons by many orders of magnitude. An immediate consequence of this work is a broader range of accessible science by using electron probes, enabling techniques as femtosecond nano-diffraction and coherent diffraction imaging, and paving the way to direct observation of ultrafast dynamics in complex and isolated samples, from nanocrystals, to nano/micro droplets and organic molecules.

With progress of photoinjector technology, thermal emittance has become the primary limitation of electron beam brightness. Extensive efforts have been devoted to study thermal emittance, but experiment results differ between research groups and few can be well interpreted. Besides the ambiguity of photoemission mechanism, variations of cathode surface conditions during cathode preparation, such as work function, field enhancement factor, and surface roughness, will cause thermal emittance differences. In this paper, we report an experimental study of electric field dependence of copper cathode quantum efficiency (QE) and thermal emittance in a radio frequency (rf) gun, through which in situ cathode surface parameters and thermal emittance contributions from photon energy, Schottky effect, and surface roughness are extracted. It is found the QE of a copper cathode illuminated by a 266 nm UV laser increased substantially to 1:5 Â 10 À4 after cathode cleaning during rf conditioning, and a copper work function of 4.16 eV, which is much lower than nominal value (4.65 eV), was measured. Experimental results also show a thermal emittance growth as much as 0:92 mm mrad=mm at 50 MV=m due to the cathode surface roughness effect, which is consistent with cathode surface morphology measurements.

Particle-beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) enables various novel high-gradient techniques for powering future compact light-source and high-energy physics applications. Here, a driving particle bunch excites a wakefield response in a plasma medium, which may rapidly accelerate a trailing witness beam. In this Letter, we present the measurement of ratios of acceleration of the witness bunch to deceleration of the driver bunch, the so-called transformer ratio, significantly exceeding the fundamental theoretical and thus far experimental limit of 2 in a PWFA. An electron bunch with ramped current profile was utilized to accelerate a witness bunch with a transformer ratio of 4.6_{-0.7}^{+2.2} in a plasma with length ∼10  cm, also demonstrating stable transport of driver bunches with lengths on the order of the plasma wavelength.

We report the first experimental characterization of efficiency and spectrum enhancement in a laser-seeded free-electron laser using a tapered undulator. Output and spectra in the fundamental and third harmonic were measured versus distance for uniform and tapered undulators. With a 4% field taper over 3 m, a 300% (50%) increase in the fundamental (third harmonic) output was observed. A significant improvement in the spectra with the elimination of sidebands was observed using a tapered undulator. The experiment is in good agreement with predictions using the MEDUSA simulation code.

We report on the performances of a Cs2Te photocathode under extreme conditions of high peak time-dependent accelerating fields, continuous wave operations, and MHz pulse extraction with up to 0.3 mA average current. The measurements, performed in a normal conducting cavity, show extended lifetime and robustness, elucidate the main mechanisms for cathode degradation, and set the required system vacuum performance for compatibility with the operations of a high average power X-ray free electron laser user facility, opening the doors to the next generation of MHz-scale ultrafast scientific instruments.