arXiv subjects

P. H. A. Mutsaers

Publications and source records attributed to P. H. A. Mutsaers.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

First x-rays from a compact and tunable LINAC-based Compton scattering source

In this paper, we present the first measurements of x-rays produced with a compact, narrowband, and tunable inverse Compton scattering-based x-ray source, developed at Eindhoven University of Technology. A flux of $1.2 \cdot 10^3$ photons per shot was measured, in agreement with simulations. Using a high-resolution spectral camera, we show that the photon energy can be tuned continuously from 5.8~keV to 10.7~keV with a bandwidth of 4\%. The measured x-ray pulse length was in the picosecond range. Additionally, we show that the source allows full control over the x-ray polarization control. By optimizing experimental parameters, implementing improvements to the setup and further conditioning of the accelerator structure, a brilliance of $10^{12}$ photons/(s $\times$ mrad$^2$ $\times$ mm${^{2}}$ $\times$ 0.1\% BW) can be achieved, with photon energies up to 40 keV. Because the complete electron beamline fits on a single optical table, it is suitable as an in-house x-ray source for university laboratories, industrial production lines, museums, and hospitals.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2024

Direct Observation of Sub-Poissonian Temporal Statistics in a Continuous Free Electron Beam with Sub-picosecond Resolution

We present a novel method to measure the arrival time statistics of continuous electron beams with sub-ps resolution, based on the combination of an RF deflection cavity and fast single electron imaging. We observe Poissonian statistics within time bins from 100~ns to 2~ns and increasingly pronounced sub-Poissonian statistics as the time bin decreases from 2~ps to 340~fs. This 2D streak-camera in principle enables femtosecond-level arrival time measurements, paving the way to observing Pauli blocking effects in electron beams and thus serving as an essential diagnostic tool towards degenerate electron beam sources for free electron quantum optics.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2023

RF acceleration of ultracold electron bunches

The ultrafast and ultracold electron source, based on laser cooling and trapping of an atomic gas and its subsequent near-threshold photoionization, is capable of generating electron bunches with a high transverse brightness at energies of roughly 10 keV. This paper investigates the possibility of increasing the range of applications of this source by accelerating the bunch using radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. Bunch energies of $\sim35$ keV are measured by analyzing the diffraction patterns generated from a mono-crystalline gold sample. Further analysis points to a largely preserved normalized transverse emittance during acceleration.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2023

Design and optimization of a 100 keV DC/RF ultracold electron source

An ultracold electron source based on near-threshold photoionization of a laser-cooled and trapped atomic gas is presented in this work. Initial DC acceleration to $\sim$10 keV and subsequent acceleration of the created bunches to 100 keV by RF fields makes the design suitable to serve as injector for accelerator-based light sources, single-shot ultrafast protein crystallography, applications in dielectric laser acceleration schemes, and potentially as an injector for free electron lasers operating in the quantum regime. This paper presents the design and properties of the developed DC/RF structure. It is shown that operation at a repetition frequency of 1 kHz is achievable and detailed particle tracking simulations are presented showing the possibility of achieving a brightness that can exceed conventional RF photosources.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2019

Gigahertz repetition rate thermionic electron gun concept

We present a novel concept for the generation of gigahertz repetition rate high brightness electron bunches. A custom design 100 kV thermionic gun provides a continuous electron beam, with the current determined by the filament size and temperature. A 1 GHz rectangular RF cavity deflects the beam across a knife-edge, creating a pulsed beam. Adding a higher harmonic mode to this cavity results in a flattened magnetic field profile which increases the duty cycle to 30%. Finally, a compression cavity induces a negative longitudinal velocity-time chirp in a bunch, initiating ballistic compression. Adding a higher harmonic mode to this cavity increases the linearity of this chirp and thus decreases the final bunch length. Charged particle simulations show that with a 0.15 mm radius LaB6 filament held at 1760 K, this method can create 279 fs, 3.0 pC electron bunches with a radial rms core emittance of 0.089 mm mrad at a repetition rate of 1 GHz.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2019

Dual mode microwave deflection cavities for ultrafast electron microscopy

This paper presents the experimental realization of an ultrafast electron microscope operating at a repetition rate of 75 MHz based on a single compact resonant microwave cavity operating in dual mode. This elliptical cavity supports two orthogonal TM$_{110}$ modes with different resonance frequencies that are driven independently. The microwave signals used to drive the two cavity modes are generated from higher harmonics of the same Ti:Sapphire laser oscillator. Therefore the modes are accurately phase-locked, resulting in periodic transverse deflection of electrons described by a Lissajous pattern. By sending the periodically deflected beam through an aperture, ultrashort electron pulses are created at a repetition rate of 75 MHz. Electron pulses with $τ=(750\pm10)$ fs pulse duration are created with only $(2.4\pm0.1)$ W of microwave input power; with normalized rms emittances of $ε_{n,x}=(2.1\pm0.2)$ pm rad and $ε_{n,y}=(1.3\pm0.2)$ pm rad for a peak current of $I_p=(0.4\pm0.1)$ nA. This corresponds to an rms normalized peak brightness of $B_{np,\textrm{rms}}=(7\pm1)\times10^6$ A/m$^2$ sr V, equal to previous measurements for the continuous beam. In addition, the FWHM energy spread of $ΔU = (0.90\pm0.05)$ eV is also unaffected by the dual mode cavity. This allows for ultrafast pump-probe experiments at the same spatial resolution of the original TEM in which a 75 MHz Ti:Sapphire oscillator can be used for exciting the sample. Moreover, the dual mode cavity can be used as a streak camera or time-of-flight EELS detector with a dynamic range $>10^4$.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2018

Design and characterization of dielectric filled TM$_{110}$ microwave cavities for ultrafast electron microscopy

Microwave cavities oscillating in the TM$_{110}$ mode can be used as dynamic electron-optical elements inside an electron microscope. By filling the cavity with a dielectric material it becomes more compact and power efficient, facilitating the implementation in an electron microscope. However, the incorporation of the dielectric material makes the manufacturing process more difficult. Presented here are the steps taken to characterize the dielectric material, and to reproducibly fabricate dielectric filled cavities. Also presented are two versions with improved capabilities. The first, called a dual-mode cavity, is designed to support two modes simultaneously. The second has been optimized for low power consumption. With this optimized cavity a magnetic field strength of 2.84 $\pm$ 0.07 mT was generated at an input power of 14.2 $\pm$ 0.2 W. Due to the low input powers and small dimensions, these dielectric cavities are ideal as electron-optical elements for electron microscopy setups.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

Time-of-Flight Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy by Longitudinal Phase Space Manipulation with Microwave Cavities

The possibility to perform high-resolution time-resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy has the potential to impact a broad range of research fields. Resolving small energy losses with ultrashort electron pulses, however, is an enormous challenge due to the low average brightness of a pulsed beam. In this letter, we propose to use time-of-flight measurements combined with longitudinal phase space manipulation using resonant microwave cavities. This allows for both an accurate detection of energy losses with a high current throughput, and efficient monochromation. First, a proof-of-principle experiment is presented, showing that with the incorporation of a compression cavity the flight time resolution can be improved significantly. Then, it is shown through simulations that by adding a cavity-based monochromation technique, a full-width-at-half-maximum energy resolution of 22 meV can be achieved with 3.1 ps pulses at a beam energy of 30 keV with currently available technology. By combining state-of-the-art energy resolutions with a pulsed electron beam, the technique proposed here opens up the way to detecting short-lived excitations within the regime of highly collective physics.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2018

High quality ultrafast transmission electron microscopy using resonant microwave cavities

Ultrashort, low-emittance electron pulses can be created at a high repetition rate by using a TM$_{110}$ deflection cavity to sweep a continuous beam across an aperture. These pulses can be used for time-resolved electron microscopy with atomic spatial and temporal resolution at relatively large average currents. In order to demonstrate this, a cavity has been inserted in a transmission electron microscope, and picosecond pulses have been created. No significant increase of either emittance or energy spread has been measured for these pulses. At a peak current of $814\pm2$ pA, the root-mean-square transverse normalized emittance of the electron pulses is $\varepsilon_{n,x}=(2.7\pm0.1)\cdot 10^{-12}$ m rad in the direction parallel to the streak of the cavity, and $\varepsilon_{n,y}=(2.5\pm0.1)\cdot 10^{-12}$ m rad in the perpendicular direction for pulses with a pulse length of 1.1-1.3 ps. Under the same conditions, the emittance of the continuous beam is $\varepsilon_{n,x}=\varepsilon_{n,y}=(2.5\pm0.1)\cdot 10^{-12}$ m rad. Furthermore, for both the pulsed and the continuous beam a full width at half maximum energy spread of $0.95\pm0.05$ eV has been measured.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2017

Theory and particle tracking simulations of a resonant radiofrequency deflection cavity in TM$_{110}$ mode for ultrafast electron microscopy

We present a theoretical description of resonant radiofrequency (RF) deflecting cavities in TM$_{110}$ mode as dynamic optical elements for ultrafast electron microscopy. We first derive the optical transfer matrix of an ideal pillbox cavity and use a Courant-Snyder formalism to calculate the 6D phase space propagation of a Gaussian electron distribution through the cavity. We derive closed, analytic expressions for the increase in transverse emittance and energy spread of the electron distribution. We demonstrate that for the special case of a beam focused in the center of the cavity, the low emittance and low energy spread of a high quality beam can be maintained, which allows high-repetition rate, ultrafast electron microscopy with 100 fs temporal resolution combined with the atomic resolution of a high-end TEM. This is confirmed by charged particle tracking simulations using a realistic cavity geometry, including fringe fields at the cavity entrance and exit apertures.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2017

Measurements of the energy distribution of an ultracold rubidium ion beam

The energy distribution of an ultracold rubidium ion beam, which is intended to be used as the source for a focused ion beam instrument, is measured with a retarding field analyzer. The ions are created from a laser-cooled and compressed atomic beam by two-step photoionization in which the ionization laser power is enhanced in a build-up cavity. Particle tracing simulations are performed to ensure the analyzer is able to resolve the distribution. The lowest achieved full width 50% energy spread is $\left(0.205\pm0.006\right)$ eV. The energy spread originates from the variation in the ionization position of the ions which are created inside an extraction electric field. This extraction field is essential to limit disorder-induced heating which can decrease the ion beam brightness. The ionization position distribution is limited by a tightly focused excitation laser beam. Energy distributions are measured for various ionization and excitation laser intensities and compared with calculations based on numerical solutions of the optical Bloch equations including ionization. A good agreement is found between measurements and calculations.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2017

Cavity-enhanced photoionization of an ultracold rubidium beam for application in focused ion beams

A two-step photoionization strategy of an ultracold rubidium beam for application in a focused ion beam instrument is analyzed and implemented. In this strategy the atomic beam is partly selected with an aperture after which the transmitted atoms are ionized in the overlap of a tightly cylindrically focused excitation laser beam and an ionization laser beam whose power is enhanced in a build-up cavity. The advantage of this strategy, as compared to without the use of a build-up cavity, is that higher ionization degrees can be reached at higher currents. Optical Bloch equations including the photoionization process are used to calculate what ionization degree and ionization position distribution can be reached. Furthermore, the ionization strategy is tested on an ultracold beam of $^{85}$Rb atoms. The beam current is measured as a function of the excitation and ionization laser beam intensity and the selection aperture size. Although details are different, the global trends of the measurements agree well with the calculation. With a selection aperture diameter of 52 $μ$m, a current of $\left(170\pm4\right)$ pA is measured, which according to calculations is 63% of the current equivalent of the transmitted atomic flux. Taking into account the ionization degree the ion beam peak reduced brightness is estimated at $1\times10^7$ A/(m$^2\,$sr$\,$eV).

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2017

Direct magneto-optical compression of an effusive atomic beam for high-resolution focused ion beam application

An atomic rubidium beam formed in a 70 mm long two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (2D MOT), directly loaded from a collimated Knudsen source, is analyzed using laser-induced fluorescence. The longitudinal velocity distribution, the transverse temperature and the flux of the atomic beam are reported. The equivalent transverse reduced brightness of an ion beam with similar properties as the atomic beam is calculated because the beam is developed to be photoionized and applied in a focused ion beam. In a single two-dimensional magneto-optical trapping step an equivalent transverse reduced brightness of $(1.0\substack{+0.8-0.4})$ $\times 10^6$ A/(m$^2$ sr eV) was achieved with a beam flux equivalent to $(0.6\substack{+0.3-0.2})$ nA. The temperature of the beam is further reduced with an optical molasses after the 2D MOT. This increased the equivalent brightness to $(6\substack{+5-2})$$\times 10^6$ A/(m$^2$ sr eV). For currents below 10 pA, for which disorder-induced heating can be suppressed, this number is also a good estimate of the ion beam brightness that can be expected. Such an ion beam brightness would be a six times improvement over the liquid metal ion source and could improve the resolution in focused ion beam nanofabrication.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2015

Performance predictions of a focused ion beam from a laser cooled and compressed atomic beam

Focused ion beams are indispensable tools in the semiconductor industry because of their ability to image and modify structures at the nanometer length scale. Here we report on performance predictions of a new type of focused ion beam based on photo-ionization of a laser cooled and compressed atomic beam. Particle tracing simulations are performed to investigate the effects of disorder-induced heating after ionization in a large electric field. They lead to a constraint on this electric field strength which is used as input for an analytical model which predicts the minimum attainable spot size as a function of amongst others the flux density of the atomic beam, the temperature of this beam and the total current. At low currents (I<10 pA) the spot size will be limited by a combination of spherical aberration and brightness, while at higher currents this is a combination of chromatic aberration and brightness. It is expected that a nanometer size spot is possible at a current of 1 pA. The analytical model was verified with particle tracing simulations of a complete focused ion beam setup. A genetic algorithm was used to find the optimum acceleration electric field as a function of the current. At low currents the result agrees well with the analytical model while at higher currents the spot sizes found are even lower due to effects that are not taken into account in the analytical model.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2014

Performance predictions for a laser intensified thermal beam for use in high resolution Focused Ion Beam instruments

Photo-ionization of a laser-cooled and compressed atomic beam from a high-flux thermal source can be used to create a high-brightness ion beam for use in Focus Ion Beam (FIB) instruments. Here we show using calculations and Doppler cooling simulations that an atomic rubidium beam with a brightness of $2.1 \times 10^7 A/(m^2\,sr\,eV)$ at a current of 1 nA can be created using a compact 5 cm long 2D magneto-optical compressor which is more than an order of magnitude better than the current state of the art Liquid Metal Ion Source.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2011

Measurement of the temperature of an ultracold ion source using time-dependent electric fields

We report on a measurement of the characteristic temperature of an ultracold rubidium ion source, in which a cloud of laser-cooled atoms is converted to ions by photo-ionization. Extracted ion pulses are focused on a detector with a pulsed-field technique. The resulting experimental spot sizes are compared to particle-tracking simulations, from which a source temperature $T = (1 \pm 2)$ mK and the corresponding transversal reduced emittance $ε_r = 7.9 X 10^{-9}$ m rad $\sqrt{\rm{eV}}$ are determined. We find that this result is likely limited by space charge forces even though the average number of ions per bunch is 0.022.

physics.atom-ph↗