• N.A. Moody, D.W. Feldman, P.G. O'Shea
  IREAP, College Park, Maryland
• K. Jensen
  NRL, Washington, DC

Photoinjector performance is a limiting factor in the continued development of high powered FELs and electron beam-based accelerators. Presently available photocathodes are plagued with limited efficiency and short lifetime in an RF-gun environment, due to contamination or evaporation of a photosensitive surface layer. An ideal photocathode should have high efficiency at long wavelengths, long lifetime in practical vacuum environments, and prompt emission. Cathodes with high efficiency typically have limited lifetime, and vice versa, and the needs of the photocathode are generally at odds with those of the drive laser. A potential solution is the low work function dispenser cathode, where lifetime issues are overcome by periodic in situ regeneration that restores the photosensitive surface layer, analogous to those used in the microwave power tube industry. This work reports on the fabrication techniques and performance of cesiated metal photocathodes and cesiated dispenser cathodes, with a focus on understanding and improving quantum efficiency and lifetime, and analyzing issues of emission uniformity. The efficiency versus coverage behavior of cesiated metals is discussed and closely matches that predicted by recent theory.*

*K. L. Jensen, et al., "Photoemission from Low Work Function Coated Metal Surfaces: A Comparison of Theory to Experiment" (this conference).

• K. Jensen
  NRL, Washington, DC
• D.W. Feldman, N.A. Moody, P.G. O'Shea
  IREAP, College Park, Maryland

The development of rugged and/or self rejuvenating photocathodes with high quantum efficiency (QE) using the longest wavelength drive laser is of paramount importance for RF photo-injectors for high power FELs and accelerators. We report on our program to develop advanced photocathodes and to develop and validate models of photoemission from coated metals to analyze experimental data,* provide emission models usable by beam simulation codes,** and project performance. The model accounts for the effects of laser heating, thermal evolution, surface conditions, laser parameters, and material characteristics, and predicts current distribution and QE. The photoemission and QE from metals and dispenser photocathodes is evaluated: the later introduces complications such as coverage non-uniformity and field enhancement. The performance of the models is compared to our experimental results for dispenser photocathodes and cesiated surfaces (e.g., tungsten, silver, etc.) in which the time-dependent models are shown to agree very well with experimental findings, but also to results in the literature. Extrapolations to performance regimes of interest shall be given.

*N. Moody et al., "Fabrication and Measurement of Low Workfunction Cesiated Dispenser Photocathodes" (this conference). **D.A. Dimitrov et al., "Development of Advanced Models for 3D Photocathode PIC Simulations" (this conference).