No abstract

With gigaelectron-volts per centimetre energy gains and femtosecond electron beams, laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) is a promising candidate for applications, such as ultrafast electron diffraction, multistaged colliders and radiation sources (betatron, compton, undulator, free electron laser). However, for some of these applications, the beam performance, for example, energy spread, divergence and shot-to-shot fluctuations, need a drastic improvement. Here, we show that, using a dedicated transport line, we can mitigate these initial weaknesses. We demonstrate that we can manipulate the beam longitudinal and transverse phase-space of the presently available LWFA beams. Indeed, we separately correct orbit mis-steerings and minimise dispersion thanks to specially designed variable strength quadrupoles, and select the useful energy range passing through a slit in a magnetic chicane. Therefore, this matched electron beam leads to the successful observation of undulator synchrotron radiation after an 8 m transport path. These results pave the way to applications demanding in terms of beam quality.

In this article we describe the design and the operation of an original, high transmission, electrostatic “double toroidal” electron energy analyzer. The double toroidal analyzer allows the high resolution and high luminosity simultaneous measurement of the kinetic energy, and angular distribution of electrons, using a two-dimensional position sensitive detector. The exact shape of the electrodes is deduced from both analytical and numerical electron trajectory calculations. The electron detector is based on a charge analysis and optimized to attain a 100 kHz counting rate. The actual performances of the analyzer are illustrated with spectra obtained after resonant Auger decay of N2O excited around the nitrogen K shell (hν=401 eV), and of Kr after 3d5/2→5p excitation at hν=91.2 eV. A “étendue” of 15% of the pass energy, as well as a resolving power (Ep/δE) of 100were measured.