Terahertz Compression of Electron Pulses at a Planar Mirror Membrane

Ehberger, Dominik; Mohler, Kathrin J.; Vasileiadis, Thomas; Ernstorfer, Ralph; Waldecker, Lutz und Baum, Peter (2019): Terahertz Compression of Electron Pulses at a Planar Mirror Membrane. In: Physical Review Applied, Vol. 11, No. 2, 024034

Abstract

Compression of electron pulses with terahertz radiation offers short pulse durations and intrinsic subcycle stability in time. We report the generation of 12-fs (rms), 28-fs (FWHM) electron pulses at a kinetic energy of 75 keV by using single-cycle terahertz radiation and a simple planar mirror. The mirror interface provides transverse velocity matching and spatially uniform compression in time with purely longitudinal field-electron interaction. The measured short-term and long-term temporal drifts are substantially below the pulse duration without any active synchronization. A simple phase-space model explains the measured temporal focusing dynamics for different compressor strengths and shows a path toward generating isolated attosecond electron pulses from beams of almost arbitrary transverse emittance.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 2331-7019
• Language: English