© 1996 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. Studies of Linear and Nonlinear Photoelectric Emission for Advanced Accelerator Applications R. Brogle, P. Muggli, P. Davis, G. Hairapetian, and C. Joshi Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024 Abstract potential barrier. No such enhancement was observed in Various electron emission properties of accelerator the DC gun. Thus the QE of a photocathode in the RF gun photocathodes were studied using short pulse lasers. The is typically an order of magnitude greater than that of the quantum efficiencies (QE’s) of copper and magnesium same cathode measured in the DC gun. The anode-cathode were compared before and after above-damage threshold system of the DC gun was enclosed in a vacuum system at laser cleaning. Changes in the emission properties of a pressure of 10−6 torr. The energy of each laser pulse was copper photocathodes used in the UCLA RF photoinjector measured on line by a photodiode placed behind a UV gun were observed by mapping the QE's of the cathode mirror in the laser line. The emitted charge was measured surfaces. The electron yield of thin copper films resulting by a charge preamplifier placed across a 1 MΩ load from back-side illumination was measured. Multiphoton resistor. (nonlinear) emission was studied as a means of creating 10 ultrashort electron bunches, and an RF gun Parmela simulation investigated the broadening of such pulses as they propagate down the beam line. 1 I. COPPER AND MAGNESIUM QUANTUM EFFICIENCY MEASUREMENTS 0.1 In a radio-frequency (RF) photoinjector gun, short pulse electron beams are created using a laser pulse incident on a photocathode placed in a high RF field emitted charge (pC) 0.01 Mg before cleaning accelerating structure. The laser is synchronized with the Mg after cleaning RF cycle to achieve maximum acceleration and minimum Mg 15 minutes later Cu before cleaning energy spread of the electron bunch. For high peak 0.001 currents, a photocathode material should be chosen which 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 has a high quantum efficiency at the laser wavelength. It µ must also be robust to withstand the high RF fields and incident energy ( J) high incident laser intensity, and should have a smooth, Fig. 1. Electron yields of Cu and Mg. nonreactive surface for uniform emission over long periods The cathodes were 1" diameter OFHC copper and of operation. 95% Mg-Zn-Al alloy samples hand polished to 1 µm. The Copper and magnesium are two materials 1,2 QE of each sample was determined by varying the incident commonly used in these devices. The work function of laser energy and measuring the corresponding emitted copper is 4.6 eV and thus ultra-violet (UV) laser pulses are charge. For the single-photon (linear) photoelectric effect, required to achieve linear photoemission. In the UCLA RF the emitted charge should be directly proportional to the 1 gun these pulses are created by frequency quadrupling an incident laser energy. The constant of proportionality of amplified Nd:YAG laser pulse to obtain 266 nm (4.7 eV this relationship is the electron yield. photon energy) radiation. Magnesium has a 3.7 eV work The results of the Cu and Mg measurements are function and therefore may exhibit a higher electron yield shown in Fig. 1. The curves show the linear relationship than copper. However, Mg is more reactive than Cu and between charge and laser energy at moderate charge levels subject to greater surface contamination which can hinder -- at high charge levels the curves bend due to space photoemission. charge saturation. Initially, the electron yield of copper A DC field test gun was devised to measure the was 2.2 pC/µJ (QE = 1. 0 × 10−5 electrons per photon) while QE's of copper and magnesium photocathodes. Laser the magnesium yield was only 0.15 pC/µJ. We then pulses of 266 nm wavelength, 50 ps pulsewidth, and 3 mm performed above-damage threshold laser cleaning on the spot size were sent through a hollow anode onto the magnesium sample, and observed the electron yield cathode sample at normal incidence. The anode was increase to 33 pC/µJ (a factor of 220 -- 15 times greater biased at +5 kV and located 3 mm from the cathode, than Cu). However, within minutes the yield decayed to 10 resulting in an electric field of 1.6 MeV/m. In the actual pC/µJ where it remained steady. Even in a vacuum of 10−6 RF gun the electric field is 100 MeV/m, which enhances the magnesium surface can quickly become contaminated the electron emission via the Schottky lowering of the and lose quantum efficiency. Similar cleaning on copper 1039 showed a modest (factor of two) increase in QE but no such 10 emission degradation over time. Although this technique enhances electron yield, the resulting damaged area may 8 produce non-uniform emission which could impair the J) emittance of the accelerator beam. µ II. CHANGES IN RF GUN PHOTOCATHODE 6 EMISSION CHARACTERISTICS In an RF photoinjector gun, the cathode is exposed 4 to many adverse physical conditions: extreme RF fields, high voltage arcing during conditioning, impurities in the 2 vacuum, and repetitive incident UV laser shots. These electron yield (pC)/ newly polished factors may induce physical changes on the surface of the after 1 week in RF gun photocathode which modify its photoemission 0 characteristics. Such changes were observed for copper -6-4-20246 cathodes in the UCLA RF gun.3 x (mm) 6 Fig. 3. Hand polished photocathode. ---- new Spawr mirror photocathode after 5 4 months in RF gun The second cathode was polished by hand to a 1 µm finish. It was installed in the RF gun for one week J) µ 4 before its quantum efficiency and emittance characteristics began to deteriorate. Fig. 3 shows the QE maps of this 3 cathode before and after the RF gun installation. Note that originally the electron yield was two times larger toward 2 the edges of the cathode than at the center. This feature was not present for the new Spawr-polished mirror (Fig. 2), electron yield (pC/ 1 and thus seems to be a characeristic of the polishing method. After one week in the RF gun the QE map had 0 changed, becoming fairly constant across the surface. No -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 large scale variations were observed as on the previous x (mm) cathode. Fig. 2. Spawr polished RF photocathode. III. BACK ILLUMINATION OF THIN Cu In an attempt to understand the nature of these FILMS emission changes, the DC gun was used to create quantum Synchronization of an electron bunch with a laser efficiency maps of the cathode surfaces. This was done by pulse is important in experiments such as the plasma beat focusing the input 266 nm laser pulse to a spotsize of wave accelerator. Using laser-induced photoemission to approximately 100 µm, and then moving the cathode with generate such electron bunches is an effective means of the x,y feedthrough to illuminate different points on the achieving this synchronization. However, if a photoinjector surface. gun is part of an X-band or higher frequency linac, it may The first cathode tested was originally polished by be difficult or impossible to illuminate the front surface of a Spawr Industries to λ/20 for 10 µm light. It had been used photocathode with a laser pulse. If such a device is driven in the RF gun for 4 months of operation, then removed after by a DC gun, it may be possible to circumvent this problem its quantum efficiency and emittance characteristics by employing a thin film photocathode that is illuminated degraded. A QE surface map of this cathode after removal from the back side of the film to produce electron emission is shown in Fig. 2. Variations greater than a factor of five from the front side. Although this technique will result in in the QE are observed across the surface. Such variations some loss of quantum efficiency, it may be useful in are not present on a newly polished Spawr copper mirror, systems which do not require a high total charge. shown for comparison. To investigate this possibility, we measured the UV (266 nm) light transmission and electron emission properties of five different thicknesses of copper films. The measurements were done in the back illumination configuration of the DC gun. The films were deposited on 1" diameter fused silica windows and ranged from 270 Å to 1490 Å in thickness. The laser pulses propagated through the transparent substrate onto the back side of the copper film. The resulting photoelectrons were then collected on 1040 the opposite (front) side by the hollow anode. A calibrated 10 325 nm photodiode was placed after the hollow anode to meaure 650 nm the energy of the light transmitted through the film. 217 nm 1 1 -6 QE = 7 x 10 UV transmisson slope = 1 charge emission 0.1 0.1 0.01 emitted charge (pC) emitted charge slope = 2 0.01 slope = 3 optical skin depth = 200 Å back/front ratio 0.001 0.001 10-5 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000 incident energy (µJ) 0.0001 Fig. 5. Multiphoton emission from copper.