UCLA, Los Angeles, USA
Ariel University, Ariel, Israel
INFN/LNF, Frascati, Italy
A novel hybrid photo injector was designed and partially tested at the UCLA Particle Beam Physics Laboratory. It was later commissioned at Ariel University in Israel as an on-going collaboration between the two universities. This unique, new generation design provides a radically simpler approach to RF feeding of a gun/buncher system, leading to a much shorter beam via velocity bunching owed to an attached traveling wave section of the photo-injector. This design results in better performance in beam parameters, providing a high quality electron beam, with energy of 6 MeV, emittance of app 3 μm, and a 150 fs pulse duration at up to 1 nC per pulse. The Hybrid gun is driven by a SLAC XK5 Klystron as the high power RF source, and third harmonic of a fs level IR Laser amplifier (266 nm) to drive the Cathode. The unique e-gun will produce an electron pulse for a THz FEL, which will operate at the super-radiance regime, and therefore requires extraordinary beam properties. This paper briefly describes the gun and presents initial operational results from the gun and its sub-systems.
