Gamma-ray compton light source development at LLNL

A new class of tunable, monochromatic λ-ray sources capable of operating at high peak and average brightness is currently being developed at LLNL for nuclear photo-science and applications. These novel systems are based on Compton scattering of laser photons by a high brightness relativistic electron beam produced by an rf photoinjector. A prototype, capable of producing ≫ 10⁸ 0.7 MeV photons in a single shot, with a fractional bandwidth of 1%, and a repetition rate of 10 Hz, is currently under construction at LLNL; this system will be used to perform nuclear resonance fluorescence experiments. A new symmetrized S-band rf gun, using a Mg photocathode, will produce up to 1 nC of charge in an 8 ps bunch, with a normalized emittance modeled at 0.8 mm.mrad; electrons are subsequently accelerated up to 120 MeV to interact with a 500 mJ, 10 ps, 355 nm laser pulse and generate γ-rays. The laser front end is a fiber-based system, using corrugated-fiber Bragg gratings for stretching, and drives both the frequency-quadrupled photocathode illumination laser and the Nd:YAG interaction laser. Two new technologies are used in the laser: a hyper-Michelson temporal pulse stacker capable of producing 8 ps square UV pulses, and a hyper-dispersion compressor for the interaction laser. Other key technologies, basic scaling laws, and recent experimental results will also be presented, along with an overview of future research and development directions.