Applications such as electron microscopy (to eliminate chromatic aberrations), or the free-electron laser (to have tunable gain of the laser over a large range of parameters) require electron beams with a narrow distribution of the kinetic energy.
In order to control the width of this distribution, we suggest to scatter electrons off two counter-propagating light waves as indicated in Fig. 1, that is we use induced Compton scattering. Within classical mechanics and in the co-moving frame, the dynamics of the scattered electron is non-relativistic and thus governed by the Newton equation in the presence of the well-known pondermotive potential (standing light wave).
This project aims at finding the optimal parameters such as (i) the profile and amplitude of the laser field envelope, and (ii) the initial distributions of the position and velocity of electron, as to minimize the variance of the energy distribution.
Fig. 1: Arrangement of laser and electron beams in lab frame and in a frame moving with the mean velocity of the electron beam.
M. Carmesin, M.A. Efremov, W.P. Schleich
A. Arie (Tel-Aviv University, Israel)
Ch. T. Koch (Humboldt University, Berlin)
R. Dunin-Borkowski (Ernst Ruska-Centre, Forschungzentrum Jülich)
The German-Israeli Project Cooperation (DIP)
[1] P. Kling, E. Giese, R. Endrich, P. Preis, R. Sauerbrey and W.P. Schleich, What defines the quantum regime of the free-electron laser?, New J. Phys. 17, 123019 (2015)
