MAXIMIZING BRIGHTNESS IN PHOTOINJECTORS

If the laser pulse driving photoinjectors could be arbitrarily shaped, the emittance growth induced by space charge effects could be totally compensated for. In particular, for RF guns, the photo-electron distribution leaving the cathode should be close to a uniform distribution contained in a 3D-ellipsoid contour. For photo-cathodes which have very fast emission times, and assuming a perfectly uniform emitting surface, this could be achieved by shaping the laser in a pulse of constant fluence and limited in space by a 3D-ellipsoid contour. Simulations show that in such conditions, with the standard linear emittance compensation, the emittance at the end of the photo-injector beamline approaches the minimum value imposed by the cathode emittance. Brightness, which is expressed as the ratio of peak current over the product of the two transverse emittance, seems to be maximized for small charges. Numerical simulations also show that for very high charge per bunch (10nC), emittances as small as 2 mm-mrad could be reached by using 3D-ellipsoidal laser pulses in an S-Band gun. The production of 3D-ellipsoidal pulses is very challenging, but seems worthwhile the effort. We briefly discuss some of the present ideas and difficulties of achieving such pulses.