Streaking of photoelectrons with optical lasers has been widely used for temporal characterization of attosecond extreme ultraviolet pulses. Recently, this technique has been adapted to characterize femtosecond x-ray pulses in free-electron lasers with the streaking imprinted by farinfrared and Terahertz (THz) pulses. Here, we report successful implementation of THz streaking for time-stamping of an ultrashort relativistic electron beam of which the energy is several orders of magnitude higher than photoelectrons. Such ability is especially important for MeV ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) applications where electron beams with a few femtosecond pulse width may be obtained with longitudinal compression while the arrival time may fluctuate at a much larger time scale. Using this laser-driven THz streaking technique, the arrival time of an ultrashort electron beam with 6 fs (rms) pulse width has been determined with 1.5 fs (rms) accuracy. Furthermore, we have proposed and demonstrated a non-invasive method for correction of the timing jitter with femtosecond accuracy through measurement of the compressed beam energy, which may allow one to advance UED towards sub-10 fs frontier far beyond the ∼100 fs (rms) jitter.

A compact ultrafast electron diffractometer, consisting of an s-band 1.6 cell photocathode radio-frequency gun, a multi-function changeable sample chamber, and a sensitive relativistic electron detector, was built at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. High-quality single-shot transmission electron diffraction patterns have been recorded by scattering 2.5 MeV electrons off single crystalline gold and polycrystalline aluminum samples. The high quality diffraction pattern indicates an excellent spatial resolution, with the ratio of the diffraction ring radius over the ring rms width beyond 10. The electron pulse width is estimated to be about 300 fs. The high temporal and spatial resolution may open new opportunities in various areas of sciences.

High quality electron beams with flat distributions in both energy and current are critical for many accelerator-based scientific facilities such as free-electron lasers and MeV ultrafast electron diffraction and microscopes. In this Letter, we report on using corrugated structures to compensate for the beam nonlinear energy chirp imprinted by the curvature of the radio-frequency field, leading to a significant reduction in beam energy spread. By using a pair of corrugated structures with orthogonal orientations, we show that the quadrupole wakefields, which, otherwise, increase beam emittance, can be effectively canceled. This work also extends the applications of corrugated structures to the low beam charge (a few pC) and low beam energy (a few MeV) regime and may have a strong impact in many accelerator-based facilities.

Erosion of accel grids of ion engine due to sputteringa) Rev. Sci. Instrum. 81, 02B109 (2010); 10.1063/1.3271248Carbon atom and cluster sputtering under low-energy noble gas plasma bombardment Effects of low-energy (1-1.5 kV) nitrogen-ion bombardment on sharply pointed tips: Sputtering, implantation, and metal-nitride formationModeling the chemical erosion of carbon materials due to low-energy H + impact is of paramount importance for the prediction of the behavior of carbon-based plasma-facing components in nuclear fusion devices. In this paper a simple general model describing both energy and temperature dependence of carbon-based chemical erosion is presented. Enlightened by Hopf's model ͕Hopf et al., ͓J. Appl. Phys. 94, 2373 ͑2003͖͒, the chemical erosion is separated into the contributions from three mechanisms: thermal chemical erosion, energetic chemical sputtering, and ion-enhanced chemical erosion. Using input from the Monte Carlo code TRIDYN, this model is able to reproduce experimental data well.

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