Electro-optic sampling of single electron beam bunches of ultrashort duration

The effect of ultrafast electron beam bunch dynamics on single shot electro-optic sampling detection schemes is examined. It is shown that ultrashort electron bunch fields of adequate magnitude can dynamically impose additional bandwidth on laser probe pulses. The significance of this effect is evaluated by comparing the dynamics of the laser probe to that of the nonradiative field of a single electron bunch for a given crystal material. Dynamic effects can be distinguished with ultrafast temporal resolution of the transmitted probe spectrum. Furthermore, velocity matching of probe and bunch fields in a co-propagation scheme is less restrictive. Such time resolved spectra then can noninvasively determine single bunch dynamics and represent a new type of electro-optic sampling.