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Dwayne Miller, R. J.

Publications and source records attributed to Dwayne Miller, R. J..

The Design of Relativistic Ultrafast Electron Diffraction and Imaging (RUEDI) Facility for Materials in Extremes

Materials in extreme conditions in terms of temperature and pressure are of great interest where novel phenomena are expected for new science and materials design. A wide range of materials are of interest, including warm dense matter, particulate materials, liquid materials, fusion materials and geophysical materials. Their environments also range from liquid phase, gas phase and cryogenic temperatures. Here, the conditions often correspond to the level of the interiors of planets or stars. Such conditions are, however, typically not available in the laboratory. In addition, novel phenomena exist as transition structures that occur at an extremely short time scale in the harsh environments, which are often difficult to be modelled.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Relativistic Modeling of Ultra-Short Electron Pulse Propagation

The ultrafast electron microscopy, electron diffraction, electron crystallography, and nanocrystallography methods opened the possibility of studying the coherent structural dynamics of matter. The time resolution of the ultrafast electron microscopy and electron diffraction methods determined by the duration of electron pulses is the key parameter of experimental setups. This paper treats electron pulse dynamics in the field free drift region specifically for applications in atomic imaging. The electron beam is modeled as a system of particles (N) with N = 1000 and N = 10 000 electrons. The beam propagates for a certain period of time (1–4 ns); during its propagation, electron distribution parameters (over coordinates and velocities) are calculated to characterize the temporal profile and uncertainty in the electron wavelength at the sample. The results of applying relativistic dynamic equations show that nonrelativistic results are satisfactorily applicable (with 15 per cent or better accuracy) for modeling short electron pulse elongation and broadening at 30 keV and lower energies. However, the results of such modeling may be significantly in error for intermediate energies (300 keV), and for the fast relativistic beams (3 MeV) they become completely wrong. The relative reduction in Coulomb repulsion effects at higher energies is known, however; we give a comprehensive treatment that allows a quantitative picture. Using high-energy electron pulses results in almost complete elimination of the repulsive Coulomb effect. Dispersion of electron velocities becomes much lower at higher energies. For 3 MeV electrons, electron pulse duration as well as its radius does not noticeably change even after traveling for 4 ns (1.2 m). Even at 300 keV, the pulse duration increase is negligible until 1 ns (0.2 m). A simple mean-field model suggested in [13] has been extended to arbitrarily fast relativistic electron pulses with good correspondence to direct dynamic modeling.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Terahertz-driven linear electron acceleration

The cost, size and availability of electron accelerators are dominated by the achievable accelerating gradient. Conventional high-brightness radio-frequency accelerating structures operate with 30–50 MeVm -1 gradients. Electron accelerators driven with optical or infrared sources have demonstrated accelerating gradients orders of magnitude above that achievable with conventional radio-frequency structures. However, laser-driven wakefield accelerators require intense femtosecond sources and direct laser-driven accelerators suffer from low bunch charge, sub-micron tolerances and sub-femtosecond timing requirements due to the short wavelength of operation. Here we demonstrate linear acceleration of electrons with keV energy gain using optically generated terahertz pulses. Terahertz-driven accelerating structures enable high-gradient electron/proton accelerators with simple accelerating structures, high repetition rates and significant charge per bunch. As a result, these ultra-compact terahertz accelerators with extremely short electron bunches hold great potential to have a transformative impact for free electron lasers, linear colliders, ultrafast electron diffraction, X-ray science and medical therapy with X-rays and electron beams.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗