Design of RF chopper system for improving beam quality in FEL injector with thermionic gun

For a linac-based Free Electron Laser (FEL), good beam quality largely contributes to the success of the final radiation. An imperfection confronted with the HUST THz-FEL facility is the long beam tail that emerges in the electron gun and exists through the whole beam line. This paper proposes to deploy a chopper system after the electron gun to truncate the beam tails before they enter into the linac. Physical dimensions of the chopper cavity are discussed in detail and we have developed and derived new analytical expressions applying to all frequencies for the optimal design. Also, technical issues of the cavity are considered. Beam dynamic simulation is performed to examine the truncation effect and the results show that more than 78% of the beam tail can be removed effectively, while preserving the emittance and energy spread in acceptable level.