Obtaining ultrashort electron bunches is the key to the studies of ultrafast science, yet second and higher order nonlinearities limits the bunch length to a few femtoseconds after compression. Traditional regulation methods using rf higher order harmonics have already optimized the bunch length to sub-fs scale, yet the energy loss and rf jitter are not negligible. In this paper we demonstrate the second order regulation with THz pulses through a dielectric-loaded wave-guide. Simulations suggest that with higher order correction, the MeV electron bunches with tens of fC charges can be compressed to a 679 attoseconds rms and the second order distortion can be compensated. The transverse beam size is also optimized to 16.8 um rms. This scheme is feasible for a wide range of electron charges. The relatively short bunch length is expected to find a better time resolution in UED, UEM and other ultrafast, time-resolved studies.

In this paper, beam dynamics simulations in a compact 200 kV DC electron gun at Tsinghua University are carried out and pm·rad-scale low normalized transverse emittance is obtained in the preliminary results. Small emission areas and low initial electron energies contribute to the generation of beams with low transverse emittance. We used electrochemical etching to fabricate tips for cold field emitters and got several regularly shaped tips with a small radius of curvature of the apex in some attempts. We anticipate that sharp tips in high-gradient electron guns can provide high-quality electron beams for different applications, e.g. high spatial resolution electron microscopy.

Obtaining ultrashort electron bunches is the key to the studies of ultrafast science, yet second and higher order nonlinearities limits the bunch length to a few femtoseconds after compression. Traditional regulation methods using rf higher order harmonics have already optimized the bunch length to sub-fs scale, yet the energy loss and rf jitter are not negligible. In this paper we demonstrate the second order regulation with THz pulses through a dielectric-loaded wave-guide. Simulations suggest that with higher order correction, the MeV electron bunches with tens of fC charges can be compressed to a 679 attoseconds rms and the second order distortion can be compensated. The transverse beam size is also optimized to 16.8 um rms. This scheme is feasible for a wide range of electron charges. The relatively short bunch length is expected to find a better time resolution in UED, UEM and other ultrafast, time-resolved studies.