• U.H. Lacroix, D.M. Fong, G. Travish, N. Vartanian
  UCLA, Los Angeles
• E.R. Arab
  PBPL, Los Angeles
• R.B. Yoder
  Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York

Pyroelectric crystals, which produce large surface electric fields during heating and cooling, have been proposed as a mechanism for constructing a stand-alone electron beam source. We report on experimental tests of this concept, using a variety of field emission tips combined with a pyroelectric crystal to produce a low-energy electron beam during thermal cycling. The mechanism is suitable for generating very small electron bunches, with energies up to tens of kilovolts, for use in microaccelerator structures.

• J.C. McNeur, R. Dusad, Z.B. Hoyer, J.B. Rosenzweig, G. Travish, N. Vartanian, J. Xu, J. Zhou
  UCLA, Los Angeles
• E.R. Arab
  PBPL, Los Angeles
• R.B. Yoder
  Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York

This paper extends the physics of the Micro-Accelerator Platform (MAP), which is in development as an optical structure for laser acceleration of relativistic electrons. The MAP is a resonant, optical-scale, slab-symmetric device that is fabricated from dielectric materials using layer-deposition techniques. For stand-alone applications, low-energy electrons (beta ~ 0.3) must be synchronously accelerated to relativistic speeds for injection into the MAP. Even lower energies are desired for other particle species (e.g. protons or muons). In this paper, we present design and simulation studies on a tapered geometry and associated coupling scheme that can produce synchronous acceleration at beta < 1 within a MAP-like structure.