Laser Seeding of the Storage-Ring Microbunching Instability for High-Power Coherent Terahertz Radiation

Journal Article · Fri Aug 18 04:00:00 EDT 2006 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.97.074802· OSTI ID:20860694

Byrd, J M; Hao, Z; Martin, M C; Robin, D S; Sannibale, F; Schoenlein, R W; Zholents, A A; Zolotorev, M S ^[1]

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1. Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)

We report the first observation of laser seeding of the storage-ring microbunching instability. Above a threshold bunch current, the interaction of the beam and its radiation results in a coherent instability, observed as a series of stochastic bursts of coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) at terahertz frequencies initiated by fluctuations in the beam density. We have observed that this effect can be seeded by imprinting an initial density modulation on the beam by means of laser ''slicing.'' In such a situation, most of the bursts of CSR become synchronous with the pulses of the modulating laser and their average intensity scales exponentially with the current per bunch. We present detailed experimental observations of the seeding effect and a model of the phenomenon. This seeding mechanism also creates potential applications as a high-power source of CSR at terahertz frequencies.

• OSTI ID: 20860694
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 97; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS
BEAM BUNCHING
INSTABILITY
LASERS
MODULATION
PULSES
STORAGE RINGS
SYNCHROTRON RADIATION