Proceedings of PAC07, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA THPMS071

LASER-POWERED DIELECTRIC STRUCTURE AS A MICRON-SCALE

ELECTRON SOURCE∗

R. B. Yoder,† Dept. of Physics, Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY 10577

G. Travish, J. B. Rosenzweig, UCLA Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Abstract STRUCTURE OVERVIEW
We describe a resonant laser-powered structure, measur- The structure described here is based on the relativis-
ing 1 mm or less in every dimension, that is capable of tic slab-symmetric dielectric-based accelerator proposed in
generating and accelerating electron beams to low ener- [1]. In these structures, a pair of parallel dielectric slabs
gies (∼ 1–2 MeV). Like several other recently investigated is separated by a narrow vacuum gap and bounded above
dielectric-based accelerators, the device is planar and res- and below by a reflective layer. Periodic slots in the reflec-
onantly excited with a side-coupled laser; however, exten- tor provide a means for coupling radiation into the gap and
sive modifications are necessary for synchronous accelera- also enforce longitudinal periodicity in the structure fields.
tion and focusing of nonrelativistic particles. Electrons are In the relativistic device, the invariance of the structure in
generated within the device via a novel ferroelectric-based the wide transverse dimension (x) leads to a longitudinal
cathode. The accelerator is constructed from dielectric ma- accelerating field which is also constant in the short trans-
terial using conventional microfabrication techniques and verse dimension y. The physical consequence of this in-
powered by a 1-μm gigawatt laser. The electron beams pro- dependence is a suppression of transverse wakefields. If
duced are suitable for a number of existing industrial and the structure dimensions (vacuum gap and dielectric thick-
medical applications. ness) are correctly chosen, the structure will be resonant at
the laser frequency; the field pattern will be dominated by a
INTRODUCTION longitudinal standing wave with phase velocity c. The field
enhancement factor depends on the details of the coupling
Laser acceleration of electrons in a resonant structure has into the structure, but the accelerating field is typically 4 to
been a topic of recent interest, with several schemes pro- 10 times larger than the incident laser field.
posed [1],[2],[3] in the past few years. These designs have
several characteristics in common: they are built from di- Accelerating Mode
electric material and hence able to withstand high electric
fields for short pulse lengths; they minimize beam wake- To construct a sub-relativistic accelerating structure, we
fields by exploiting symmetry; and they operate in the rel- require first that the phase velocity along the beam tra-
ativistic limit, with electron velocity v → c. These struc- jectory (the z direction) match the particle velocity, or
tures exhibit high gradients (∼ 100s of MeV/m) but require ω/kz = βc. We begin by analyzing a structure which
external beam injection into a narrow aperture, as the char- is uniform and very wide in the x dimension. Assuming
acteristic dimensions are on the order of the laser wave- transverse invariance of the fields, or k x = 0, the disper-
length. sion relation is kx2 + ky2 + kz2 = ω 2 /c2 , which gives an
A laser-powered resonant structure incorporating a cath- imaginary value for k y . The accelerating mode is then de-
ode or particle source would avoid this injection issue and scribed by
essentially become a monolithic particle source. Given that 
Ez (y, z) = cosh( 1 − β 2 kz y) cos(kz z)
these devices scale with laser wavelength, such a source  
ωy
could be extremely small. However, accelerating parti- = cosh cos(kz z) (1)
cles from rest introduces significant complication into the βcγ
physics. We will show that a submillimeter electron beam and a resonance condition on the structure dimensions,
source can be constructed using slab-symmetric dielectric which is found by applying boundary conditions and
layers and an integrated cathode; the energies produced matching field components, is given by
will be weakly relativistic (1–2 MeV). The resulting device   
is unsuitable for high-energy physics applications, with γβ 1 ω
r − 2 = coth a cot[k⊥ (b − a)], (2)
low trapping fraction, poor efficiency, and diverging out- r β γβc
put beam, but could have a variety of applications in indus- where r is the relative permittivity of the dielectric, k ⊥ =
try or medicine as a micro-sized radiation source. Further- 
r − 1/β 2 (ω/c), and a and b are as shown in Figure 1(a).
more, planar dielectric-based structures can be constructed We note immediately that the structure dimensions will
to very demanding tolerances using layer-deposition tech- vary with beam velocity β—and must hence be tapered as
niques common in the integrated-circuit industry. the beam energy increases—and that there is no eigensolu-
√
∗ Work supported in part by U.S. Dept. of Energy. tion for β < 1/ r . As the structure must also be modu-
† ryoder@mailaps.org lated in the z direction by coupling slots having periodicity
03 Linear Colliders, Lepton Accelerators and New Acceleration Techniques A14 Advanced Concepts
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c IEEE 3145
THPMS071 Proceedings of PAC07, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

2π/kz , the slot spacing must be tapered as well and equal a circular FEC of radius R in the absence of boundaries,
to βλ, where λ is the free-space laser wavelength. A draw- ΔU ≤ eσp R/20 , or 28.4 keV for R = 0.5 mm. Cathode
ing of the structure is shown in Figure 1(a). operation is therefore a two-stage process: the cathode is
Eq. 1 shows an inherent inefficiency of the structure: the heated to provide the quasi-static DC field, and then illu-
accelerating field increases off-axis, though the degree of minated by the laser pulse to give field emission from the
nonuniformity lessens for larger βγ. However, Eq. 2 does tips. A gap of less than a millimeter between cathode and
not constrain the half-gap spacing a, and for sufficiently acceleration structure will suffice to inject electrons at an
small a the nonuniformity can be minimized. energy high enough for trapping.

reflecting layer
(conductor/dielectric)
y Focusing
laser light
cathode
ebeam (polarized in z) z One can determine, from the Maxwell equations, the
(wide)
location x field and force components on a charged particle within the
vacuum gap for the x-invariant structure described above.
dielectric ε b While there can be no net force in x due to symmetry, we
a
find that the force in the y-direction is given to first order
(a) by  
βλ qE0 kz y
Fy ≈ sinh sin(kz z), (3)
γ γ
Ferroelectric crystal
(e.g. LiNbO3) that is, the transverse fields are defocusing in y for phases in
Laser pulse
the accelerating bucket, though they vanish in the relativis-
emitter array tic limit. While this first-order effect is unavoidable unless
(e.g. graphite needles)
the transverse symmetry in x is broken, it can be offset for
(b)
Heating element relativistic velocities by a second-order (ponderomotive)
focusing force due to the backward-going wave component
Figure 1: Conceptual drawings of (a) the accelerating in this standing-wave structure [5]. The backward wave
structure; and (b) the cathode assembly. Typical dimen- does contribute to the dynamics for the sub-relativistic elec-
sions: a = 0.05–0.1 μm; b = 0.27–0.3 μm; total length 1 trons, as described in the Simulation section below, but for
mm or 1600 structure periods. low values of β (γ ∼ 1) the defocusing still predominates.
For low energies we must introduce field variation in x in
order to address the focusing issue. By shaping the struc-
Cathode ture in the x-dimension, one in effect imposes a nonzero
(real or imaginary) k x . If kx is large enough and imaginary,
The constraint on β mentioned above implies that to be one obtains a structure which is focusing in the y direction
trapped and accelerated, the beam may not start from rest. and defocusing in x.
For example, if the dielectric is silicon or germanium ( r = One possibility for stable acceleration over hundreds of
11.69 for Si), the minimum beam energy for acceleration is periods is the use of a canted structure which maintains
23.4 keV. We propose a dual-function integrated cathode in focusing in the small (y) direction while alternating trans-
which electrons are generated by field emission and then verse kicks in the x direction. (See Fig. 2.) In this scenario,
accelerated in a quasi-DC electric field to at least 25 keV. the coupling slots are rotated by a small β-dependent an-
The cathode design is shown conceptually in Fig. 1(b) gle, in effect using a nonzero transverse velocity to oppose
and consists of a small field-emitting region, such as an ar- the defocusing kick F x . After several structure periods,
ray of graphite needles, deposited onto a ferroelectric crys- when the particle has crossed the centerline, the slot angle
tal (FEC) such as lithium niobate (LiNbO 3 ). FECs gener- is changed to the opposite sign, and the process can con-
ally have pyroelectric properties, that is, when heated or tinue.
cooled they develop a temporary polarization charge σ p
on the crystal surfaces which is proportional to the tem- NUMERICAL RESULTS
perature increase (σ p = γΔT , where γ is the pyroelec-
tric coefficient of the material and ΔT is the temperature The structure described is challenging to simulate in full,
rise in kelvin) [4]. This polarization charge is eventually due to the variety of length scales, large aspect ratios for
neutralized by bulk conduction in the material, but the pro- structure and coupling slots, and open boundary conditions
cess is slow (relaxation time on the order of seconds). For in x. We present only preliminary results here, including
LiNbO3 , γ = 10−8 C cm−2 K−1 , and a temperature in- semi-analytic and numerical approaches.
crease of 10 K is sufficient to produce a surface charge The results of single-particle tracking through analytic
of 10−7 C/cm2 , with a surface field on the order of 10 fields are shown in Figure 3(a) and (b). Energy gain for
MV/m. The total energy gained by an electron acceler- a particle on the axis appears smooth, with output energy
ated in the surface field depends on the size of the FEC; for of 1 MeV reached in just over 1 mm of travel, but for low
03 Linear Colliders, Lepton Accelerators and New Acceleration Techniques A14 Advanced Concepts
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 Proceedings of PAC07, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA THPMS071

spectrum after an electron bunch of 0.01 pC has propagated

electron 16 μm from the FEC.
trajectory
5

4 0

3
–1x109 V/m
Figure 2: An alternating-angle canted structure which

y [mm]
would be focusing in both x and y, shown viewed from
2

–2x109 V/m
above (+y). The coupling slots are rotated by a small an- 1
gle from the perpendicular and alternate in sign every few
structure periods. 0
0 5 10 15 20
(a) z [µm]

energies (β = 0.3–0.4) the particle phase in fact slips, due 5

mostly to the large percentage change in velocity (roughly 4

Particle count (relative units)

1%) per structure period. Acceleration remains steady in
this regime because of contributions from the backward- 3

going wave component. For these results, we have opti-

2
mized the structure taper and injection phase for the field
strength on axis (3.5 GV/m). In Fig. 3(b), which incor- 1
porates the canted-slot focusing scheme, stable trajectories
are shown in both transverse dimensions. The initial slot
21 21.2 21.4 21.6 21.8 22
rotation angle θ determines the acceptance of the structure; Energy [keV]
these results take θ = 10−6 δx/γ, where δx is the deviation (b)
from the axis and γ is the z-dependent electron velocity
factor. Figure 4: (a) PIC simulation of quasi-DC accelerating field
produced at a 5-mm-wide cathode using a heated FEC, with
σp = 4 × 10−7 C/cm2 . (b) Electron energy spectrum for
1000

0.01 pC beam after propagation over 16 μm in the field in

Energy [keV]

800

600 (a).
400

200
(a) CONCLUSIONS
200 400 600 800 1000
z [µm] A laser-powered micro-accelerator appears to be possi-
0.01
ble, according to preliminary investigations. Many ques-
tions remain to be answered, including the particle dy-
0.005
namics in full simulated fields, the optimal slot design for
x, y [µm]

5 10 15 20 z [µm] coupling the laser to the structure, breakdown and heating

-0.005 limits on the dielectric material, and detailed construction
-0.01 method. The tolerances required for the micro-accelerator
(b)
are well within those achieved by modern microfabrica-
tion techniques, and the dielectric materials proposed for
Figure 3: Numerical results from single-particle pushing the micro-accelerator (such as silicon and germanium) are
through analytic fields. (a) Particle energy along the struc- well suited to these construction methods.
ture, assuming a GW-class laser (3.5 GV/m field strength
within the gap). (b) Focusing using the canted-slot ap- REFERENCES
proach, showing values of x and y in the first 20 periods of
the structure. The structure is focusing in y (dashed line) [1] R. B. Yoder and J. B. Rosenzweig, Phys. Rev. STAB 8, 111301
and alternates defocusing kicks in x (solid line). (2005), and references therein.
[2] Z. Zhang, S. G. Tantawi, R. D. Ruth, Phys. Rev. STAB 8,
Simulation of the electron energies produced by the cath- 071302 (2005).
ode was estimated using the particle-in-cell code OOPIC. [3] A. Mizrahi and L. Schächter, Phys. Rev. E 70, 016505 (2004).
A stationary polarization charge layer was used to produce [4] G. Rosenman et al., J. Appl. Phys. 88, 6109 (2000).
an electric field, with “emitted” electrons created on its sur-
[5] J. Rosenzweig, A. Murokh, C. Pellegrini, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74,
face. Fig. 4(a) shows the field produced, which approaches 2467 (1995).
uniformity in y, and Fig. 4(b) shows the electron energy
03 Linear Colliders, Lepton Accelerators and New Acceleration Techniques A14 Advanced Concepts
1-4244-0917-9/07/$25.00 2007
c IEEE 3147