Study of the Powerful Nd: YLF Laser Amplifiers for the CTF3 Photoinjectors
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306 IEEE JOURNAL OF QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 47, NO. 3, MARCH 2011 Study of the Powerful Nd:YLF Laser Amplifiers for the CTF3 Photoinjectors Massimo Petrarca, Mikhail Martyanov, Marta “Csatari” Divall, and Grigory Luchinin Abstract— A high-power neodymium-doped yttrium lithium accelerating field of the gun and a high-quality laser beam fluoride (Nd:YLF) mode-locked 1.5-GHz laser currently used to together produce low-emittance electron beams, i.e., beams drive the two photoinjectors of the Compact Linear Collider with small transverse size and divergence [5], [6]. Test Facility project at the European Organization for Nuclear Research is described. A phenomenological characterization of The laser pulse duration corresponds to the required electron the two powerful Nd:YLF amplifiers is presented and compared bunch length, and a mode-locked pulse train together with with the measurements. The laser system operates in a saturated fiber-optic modulators and fast Pockels cells ensures the struc- steady-state mode. This mode provides good shot-to-shot stability ture required for the CTF3 project [3], [7] (Table I). However, with pulse train mean power in the 10 kW range. to provide a stable electron source for the future CLIC ma- Index Terms— Diode pump, Nd:YLF amplifier, photoinjector chine, PHIN needs to demonstrate a very low electron bunch laser, saturated steady-state. charge fluctuation (<0.1% rms) [8]–[10], which demands very high laser amplitude stability. Saturated steady-state (SSS) I. INTRODUCTION amplification has been chosen as a mode of operation to HE main task of the Compact Linear Collider Test support these tight requirements [11], [12]. TFacility (CTF3) at the European Organization for Nuclear The photoinjector laser provides a unique pulse structure Research (CERN) is to demonstrate the feasibility of the key determined by the machine application. Similar laser systems compact linear collider (CLIC) technology challenges for the have been developed for DESY [13] with a lower mode-locked CLIC two-beam scheme, i.e., acceleration of the main electron repetition rate (RR) but similar power characteristics using beam using the RF power emitted from strong deceleration of neodymium-doped yttrium lithium fluoride (Nd:YLF). the second beam, referred to as a drive beam [1]–[3]. In this paper, a general characterization of the laser amplifier The drive beam is currently produced by a thermionic gun system is given in detail. In Section II, an overview of the laser followed by a bunching system that transforms continuous system is presented. In Section III, a theoretical description electron current into well-localized electron bunches. This, of the laser is explained and the resultant equation for the however, introduces unwanted satellite bunches. steady-state and dynamic behavior is derived. In Section IV, For the drive and main beam, laser-driven photoinjectors the theory and the experimental data are compared. Summary have been developed. The PHotoINjector (PHIN) and Concept of the results is presented in the concluding section. d’Accélérateurs Linéaire pour Faisceau Sonde (CALIFES) projects, respectively, were dedicated to attain the photoin- II. LASER SCHEME jector parameters and to study their long-term reliability. A photoinjector is an attractive alternative [4] to generate The laser performance and characteristics are dictated by the electron bunches directly with the right time structure from a basic parameters required by CTF3 as is seen from Table I. laser where electrons are produced through the photoemission The 1.5-GHz micropulse structure specifies the choice of the process using, in our case, Cs2Te photocathodes. Another mode-locked oscillator, the required electron bunch charge of advantage of a photoinjector is that the high-gradient RF 2.33 nC, and the quantum efficiency (QE) of 3% expected from Cs2Te photocathode for a run of about 1 week, and fixes Manuscript received July 13, 2010; revised September 24, 2010; accepted the UV micropulse energy (EUV) and the wavelength to be, October 1, 2010. Date of current version February 24, 2011. This work ∼ was supported in part by the PHIN photoinjector project, funded under the respectively, 370 nJ and 262 nm. In order to satisfy such Joint Research Activity of CARE, which is the EU project for coordinated parameters, a continuous train of 8-ps micropulses arriving accelerator research in Europe, and has been built in collaboration among the from the Nd:YLF oscillator and preamplifier (PA) (from High Laboratoire de l’Accelerateur Linear, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Q Laser Gmbh) at the fundamental 1047 nm wavelength M. Petrarca and M. Divall are with the Engineering Department, is amplified by two powerful Nd:YLF multipass amplifiers, Source Target and Interactions Group, European Organization for Nu- converted to the fourth harmonic at 262 nm, and delivered clear Research, Geneva 23, Switzerland (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]). to the cathode. The intensity fluctuations must be below M. Martyanov and G. Luchinin are with the Department of Nonlinear 0.1% rms, but a factor of 10 more (<1% rms) is acceptable Dynamics and Optics, Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of for the initial feasibility tests. This stringent demand for the Science, Nizhny Novgorod 603950, Russia (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]). stability requires the laser to be run in a particular “steady- Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JQE.2010.2086047 state” mode [11], [12], which will be referred to as SSS. 0018–9197/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE PETRARCA et al.: STUDY OF POWERFUL Nd:YLF LASER AMPLIFIERS FOR CTF3 PHOTOINJECTORS 307 ∼ 8 ps 667 ps Nd:YLF MO Nd:YLF PA ∼250 μs 1047 nm, 1.5 GHz 10 W 6.6 nJ ∼400 μs 300 mW 0.2 nJ Nd:YLF AMP1 Nd:YLF AMP2 3-pass, 2 μJ 2-pass, 5.5 μJ UV, ∼670 nJ FHG ADP, KDP SHG KTP Pockels Cell no. 2 Pockels Cell no.1 (523→262) nm (1054→523) nm KD*P(1÷150) ns 10 ns ÷ 1.3 μs Fig. 1. Laser scheme. TABLE I with rise and fall time of ∼5 ns, is used for this purpose. MAIN PARAMETERS FOR TWO PHOTOINJECTORS WITH PARAMETERS NOT For the CALIFES photoinjector, a combination of two Pockels YET SATISFIED (HIGHLIGHTED) cells is used to select just one single micropulse (gating width PHIN CALIFES of ∼1 ns) up to 150 ns window. Bunch frequency, GHz 1.5 1.5 Macropulse duration, ns 1272 0.01-150 In this paper, we will focus our attention on the char- Bunches in macropulse 1907 NA acteristics of two amplifiers and will omit details of the Micropulse FWHM, ps < 10 10 commercial master oscillator (MO) and PA produced by the Timing jitter, ps rms < 1 1 company High Q Laser Production GmbH. A beam with a Time structure RR, Hz 5 5 RR of 1.5 GHz and average output power of 10 W from the Charge/bunch, nC 2.33 0.6 PA is transmitted through the first and the second Nd:YLF Charge stability, % rms < 0.25 (0.1) 3 Cs2Te : QE, % > 3 0.3 diode-pumped powerful amplifiers. The main parameters of Wavelength, nm 262 262 the amplifier chain are listed in Table II. Both the amplifiers Charge prod. have a side-pumped rod configuration [16]. In order to increase UV energy / micropulse 0.37 0.38 (0.95) @ cathode, μJ the pump coupling efficiency, cylindrical lenses are placed in front of five diode stacks to focus the pumping beams into IR-UV conversion > 0.15 0.15 (0.2) the rod [11], [12], [14]–[17] in the first amplifier (AMP1) efficiency Safe margin 0.55 (0.5) 0.7 and are removed from the second amplifier (AMP2) to pump the rod more homogeneously. AMP1 rod has a length of Laser beam 0.82 (0.7) 0.64 (0.7) transport transm. 80 mm, 70 mm of which is pumped, and a diameter of Laser beam τ = μ UV cath. energy / 7 mm pumped by 15 kW power for 1 400 s. AMP2 rod 0.07 0.076 (0.098) Output IR energy has a length of 120 mm (110 mm pumped) and a diameter τ = μ Output IR energy / 5.7 (10) of 10 mm pumped by 17.8 kW over 2 250 s. In micropulse, μJ 5.7 order to reach high gain, a continuous pulse train from the Output IR macropulse 8.5 8.5 (15) PA is passed through AMP1 three times in a non-collinear mean power, kW configuration with a total propagation length of ∼5m,by which the un-amplified beam size at 4σ, changes from 3 to 4 mm. The amplified beam from AMP1 is then rotated to compensate for thermal lensing and an isolation system The steady-state mode permits implementing a time window is installed to avoid feedback to the high-gain AMP1. AMP2 with a high degree of intensity stability during which a was originally designed to run in three passes, but steady-state ∼1.3 − μs long pulse may be selected. Hereinafter we will is reached after two passes and a collinear double geometry refer to this pulse with a substructure at 1.5 GHz as a provides the most efficient power extraction. A soft-aperture “macropulse.” The term “saturated” means that the mean input beam-shaping system was also proposed [8] (see Fig. 2). intensity is greater than the saturation intensity of the Nd:YLF, It is possible to produce a transverse (radial) beam profile which reduces the response time needed for the amplifier to proportional to cos2(π/2(r/R)2) (where R = 4.9 mm has been reach the stationary condition.