Influence des paramètres du laser sur la dynamique des paquets courts d’électrons relativistes dans des accélérateurs linéaires basés sur des canons RF et développement de diagnostics associés

摘要

In several applications, quasi-relativistic sub-ps electron bunches are required: Laser-plasma acceleration, Free electron lasers, Generation of intense THz radiation, Study of ultra-fast phenomena in matter… The short nature of the bunch and the necessity of a high peak current for the applications imply strong space-charge forces leading to a degradation of beam properties, as its transverse emittance and duration. The main difficulty is to characterize, model and take into account these effects. My thesis falls within this context through the study of dynamics and diagnostics related to these short bunches, namely whose rms duration is not directly measurable by an electronic method locating the border at a few tens of picoseconds. The chapter 2 consists in the measurements of several properties of these bunches: charge, transverse emittance and duration. The originality of my work is that I use simple methods, both on the theoretical (analytical at maximum) and technological (using only common elements of electron accelerators) point of view. These methods, more suitable for less extreme bunches, allow however obtaining very good results. I especially developed a method of charge measurement from the measurement of the light intensity emitted by a scintillating screen following the interaction with an electron beam. This method allows precisely measuring charges lower than 100fC. This is better than the capabilities of classical diagnostics (ICT and Faraday Cup) limited to the picocoulomb because of electronic noise. This method is useful since the short bunches are often low-charged to minimize the effects of space-charge forces. It will also be used for detectors calibration, which requires low charges. I also adapt multiparametric methods to measure the transverse emittance and duration of electron bunches. These indirect methods allow determining these properties from the measurement of other more accessible properties: the transverse dimensions for the transverse emittance and the energy spread for the duration. The duration measurement (3-phase method) gives very good results, since it allows determining with accuracy better than 10% rms durations lower than one picosecond. The emittance measurement without taking into account the space-charge forces in the modeling gives mixed results, since the accuracy is from 20% (3-gradients method) to more than 100% (3-screens method). A significant accuracy improvement, up to a factor of 5, can be obtained by taking the space-charge forces into account through a beam envelop equation, which constitutes the originality of my work. The chapter 3 consists in the comparison of the properties of short electron beams, single or longitudinally modulated, generated by three different methods: Injection of a short or longitudinally modulated laser pulse in an RF-gun; Magnetic compression in a chicane; RF-compression in an accelerating structure (Velocity Bunching). I particularly shown that, at equal conditions of charge, the generation of short bunches thanks to a short laser pulse driven an RF-gun is disadvantageous, both from the beam duration and transverse emittance point of view, with respect to a magnetic or RF compression of an already accelerated beam. This is explained by the more important space-charge forces just after the beam emission by the photocathode. It also consists in the development and test of analytical models for longitudinal beam dynamics. I developed a longitudinal transfer matrix for RF-gun, starting from a Kim-like model. This model has been compared with several measurements performed at PITZ and PHIL and shown to be accurate on the energy and temporal aspects, but not on the energy spread aspect. I also developed an analytical model of the velocity bunching phenomenon in travelling wave accelerating structures, starting from a simple model developed by P. Piot.