Abstract

Scattering of femtosecond optical and near infrared pulses off a low energy relativistic electron beam at 90° offers an interesting possibility to generate ultrashort pulses of x-rays. The x-ray pulses are short since the electron beam can be squeezed and focussed hard transversely, thus matching the interaction time with the femtosecond optical pulse duration. This is difficult with collinear scattering since electron beams with lengths less than a few picoseconds are hard to produce. The method has some intrinsic attractive features, e.g. simplicity of concept, directivity, tunability, etc. Experiments are under preparation in the Beam Test Facility of the Center for Beam Physics at LBL where a 30 MeV electron beam from the ALS injector linac will be scattered against a 0.8 μm, 100 mJ/pulse Terawatt femtosecond laser. Short pulse x-ray detection schemes are under development as well.

© 1994 Optical Society of America