Gillespie, W.A.
(Allan Gillespie)

TUAOS04 High Temporal Resolution, Single-Shot Electron Bunch-Length Measurements
Giel Berden, Britta Redlich, Lex van der Meer (FOM Rijnhuizen, Nieuwegein), Steven Jamison (Strathclyde University, Glasgow), Allan Gillespie, Allan MacLeod (UAD, Dundee)

A new technique, combining electro-optic detection of the Coulomb field of an electron bunch with single-shot cross-correlation of optical pulses is used to enable single-shot measurements of the electric field profile of sub-picosecond electron bunches. As in our previous "spectral decoding" technique (I. Wilke et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 88(12) 2002), the electric field of the electron bunch is encoded electro-optically on an optical pulse. However, the new "temporal decoding" method offers a much better time resolution since it overcomes a fundamental time-resolution limit of the spectral decoding method, which arises from the inseparability of time and frequency properties of the probing optical pulse. The temporal decoding technique has been applied to the measurement of 50 MeV electron bunches in the FELIX free electron laser, showing the longitudinal profile of single bunches of around 650 fs FWHM. The method is non-destructive and real-time, and therefore ideal for online monitoring of the longitudinal shape of single electron bunches. At FELIX we have used it for real-time optimization of sub-picosecond electron bunches.