Mega-electron-volt ultrafast electron diffraction at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

• Published in: Review of scientific instruments Vol. 86; no. 7; p. 073702
• Main Authors: Weathersby, S. P., Brown, G., Centurion, M., Chase, T. F., Coffee, R., Corbett, J., Eichner, J. P., Frisch, J. C., Fry, A. R., Gühr, M., Hartmann, N., Hast, C., Hettel, R., Jobe, R. K., Jongewaard, E. N., Lewandowski, J. R., Li, R. K., Lindenberg, A. M., Makasyuk, I., May, J. E., McCormick, D., Nguyen, M. N., Reid, A. H., Shen, X., Sokolowski-Tinten, K., Vecchione, T., Vetter, S. L., Wu, J., Yang, J., Dürr, H. A., Wang, X. J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Institute of Physics 01.07.2015
• Subjects: Biological materials; Dynamic structural analysis; Electron diffraction; Electron probes; Femtosecond pulses; Free electron lasers; Laboratories; Organic chemistry; Pulse duration; Relativistic electron beams; Scientific apparatus & instruments; Temporal resolution
• ISSN: 0034-6748; 1089-7623
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4926994

Ultrafast electron probes are powerful tools, complementary to x-ray free-electron lasers, used to study structural dynamics in material, chemical, and biological sciences. High brightness, relativistic electron beams with femtosecond pulse duration can resolve details of the dynamic processes on atomic time and length scales. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory recently launched the Ultrafast Electron Diffraction (UED) and microscopy Initiative aiming at developing the next generation ultrafast electron scattering instruments. As the first stage of the Initiative, a mega-electron-volt (MeV) UED system has been constructed and commissioned to serve ultrafast science experiments and instrumentation development. The system operates at 120-Hz repetition rate with outstanding performance. In this paper, we report on the SLAC MeV UED system and its performance, including the reciprocal space resolution, temporal resolution, and machine stability.