Development of Novel Applications of Dielectric Wakefield Structures for Electron Accelerators

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Abstract

Dielectric wakefield accelerators (DWAs) have been shown to support electric field gradients orders of magnitude above those achievable in conventional radio frequency particle accelerators. For this reason, DWAs are a potential future technology for delivering the next generation of high gradient, high energy accelerators. DWAs also have many applications in present day electron accelerators, where the high fields provide a compact and cost effective method for radiation generation and beam manipulation. This thesis presents experimental demonstrations of three applications of tunable, slab symmetric dielectric wakefield structures. These were the first DWA experiments performed in the UK and were carried out at the CLARA/VELA facility at Daresbury Laboratory. The first application demonstrated was a novel, continuously tunable, narrow-band THz frequency radiation source based on coherent Cherenkov radiation (CCR). This was the first demonstration of a tunable CCR source of this type. The second application demonstrated was passive, wakefield driven, beam manipulation for bunch length measurements. The third application demonstrated was the removal of longitudinally correlated energy spread (chirp) from the bunch, using the wakefield dechirping process. This work cumulated in a start-to-end simulation study on the potential impact of a dielectric dechirper for the future CLARA free electron laser (FEL). This study demonstrated significant reduction of the FEL bandwidth and ultimately led to the complete design and procurement of a novel, compact, dedicated dechirper system for CLARA.

Keyword(s)

Accelerators; Novel acceleration; THz generation; Wakefields

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