Laser-Free RF-Gun as a Powerful THz Source

Existing pulsed terahertz sources are rather expensive, bulky and frail for commercialization. Powerful THz radiation sources typically use 10 MeV or higher energy accelerators. Undulator- based Free Electron Lasers require significant real estate and are complex to operate. The lack of availability of a powerful, small foot-print terahertz source severely limits the rapidly growing research and commercial applications of terahertz. In this project we will develop a compact and much less expensive coherent terahertz source with high peak and substantial average power. It allows generation of high peak (up to ~MW range) and substantial average THz radiation power due to microbunching provided by the beam compression in an alpha-magnet, beam pre-bunching in the RF gun, and resonant Cherenkov radiation in a robust, ~inch-long planar, sub-mm gap formed by copper plates with gratings or a thin CVD diamond coating. The THz radiation in the source can be accompanied by synchronized, intense, ps-sub-ps bursts of low-dose hard X-ray radiation for additional capabilities. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits: The enormously wide range of commercial applications includes container inspection, screening, non-destructive testing, safe imaging, remote sensing, surface defectoscopy, cancer diagnostics, and time-domain spectroscopy. A rapidly growing number of research applications are found in solid-state, nuclear physics, medicine, and biology. The same source can additionally generate intense ultrashort bursts of low-dose hard X-ray radiation to enhance screening capability.