Scientists Shrink Electron Gun to Matchbox Size (IMAGE)

Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY

Scientists Shrink Electron Gun to Matchbox Size

Caption

A miniature electron gun driven by Terahertz radiation: An ultraviolett pulse (blue) back-illuminates the gun photocathode, producing a high density electron bunch inside the gun. The bunch is immediately accelerated by ultra-intense single cycle Terahertz pulses to energies approaching one kilo-electronvolt (keV). These high-field optically-driven electron guns can be utilized for ultrafast electron diffraction or injected into the accelerators for X-ray light sources.

Credit

Credit: W. Ronny Huang, CFEL/DESY/MIT

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