University of Dundee

An advanced electro-optic bunch time profile monitor for the CERN CLIC Project - development of novel materials and techniques 

Trainee: Mateusz Tyrk
Supervisor: Allan Gillespie

‌This project aims at pushing the limits of electro-optic (EO) techniques to measure relativistic electron bunches with a time resolution better than 20 femtoseconds. Such an ambitious extension requires advances in both the theoretical and experimental aspects of the problem, and will require work on new optical materials and advanced laser techniques.

The ability to measure electron bunches with this time resolution would have a significant impact on coherent light sources such as linac coherent light sources (LCLS) or x-ray free electron lasers (XFEL), since the generation of coherent x-ray beams from these machines depends critically on maintaining an ultrashort bunch length, and direct measurement is not currently feasible. Measurements will be carried out with a number of (inorganic and organic) optical materials such as GaSe, DAST, MBANF, and on a range of poled organic polymers.

‌‌In addition, the group is also experimenting with the development of novel nanostructured metamaterials based on metal-dielectric nanocomposites (MDN). These silver-doped glass nanocomposites are processed using short-pulsed laser systems to yield thin detectors exhibiting a useful EO effect, and could in principle solve many of the problems associated with the ‘classical’ materials.