Budgeting the emittance of photoemitted electron beams in a space-charge affected emission regime for free-electron laser applications

Abstract

Free-electron laser based x-ray facilities require high-brightness photoinjectors to provide low emittance electron beams at a fixed bunch charge. The emittance optimization in the injector determines the lowest achievable emittance. Based on experimental emittance optimization at the photoinjector test facility at DESY in Zeuthen, a space-charge affected emission regime is identified, in which the optimum transverse beam emittance is achieved and thus, the injector is routinely operated in this regime. An advanced modeling approach is proposed to consider a dynamic emission process in the simulation of injector beam dynamics, meanwhile allowing detailed studies of the impact of strong space-charge fields during emission on the slice formation of the emitted electron bunch at the cathode. As an application, the proposed approach is used to analyze the budget of the optimized transverse beam emittance. An interplay, taking place in the identified emission regime, between intrinsic cathode emittance and space-charge induced emittance is demonstrated. The resolved behavior by simulation is consistent with the corresponding measurement under practical operation conditions of interest. The obtained results are reported.

Perspectives towards Sub-Ångström Working Regime of the European X-ray Free-Electron Laser with Low-Emittance Electron Beams

“…By attenuation of the pulse energy, the laser system can extract different bunch charges from the cathode [36]. Along with the aforementioned variability in the imaging system of the laser, the emittance growth at a fixed charge can be minimized by optimization of transverse laser pulse shape via modeling of the photoemission process [37,38]. In addition, a typical surface roughness of the cesium-telluride photocathode produced using the present recipe is about 10 nm.…”