The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Cockcroft Institute, Warrington, Cheshire, United Kingdom
Non-destructive diagnostics of particle beams is highly desirable for essentially any accelerator or storage ring. This concerns the characterization of the primary beam itself, but also for example of atom and molecular jets that are crossed with the primary beam as experimental targets or for diagnostics purposes. A laser-feedback interferometer based on the optical self-mixing effect provides a low-cost, robust, compact and non-invasive sensor for velocity, displacement and density measurements of various targets. This contribution presents results from theoretical and experimental studies into the factors influencing the performance and accuracy of this sensor. Parameters that have been assessed include the target velocity, the size of scattering particles, their density, type and scattering properties.
