Soft X-ray generation experiment at the Tsinghua Thomson scattering X-ray source

The development, design, and construction of the Tsinghua Thomson scattering X-ray (TTX) source have been ongoing since 2001. The TTX source is based on the Thomson scattering of a femtosecond laser pulse by a relativistic electron beam, which aims at an ultra-fast, high-flux, monochromatic, and tunable X-ray source for scientific, medical, and industrial applications. A recent experiment sought to generate a soft X-ray pulse through Thomson scattering. In this experiment, a 3-eV electron beam generated from a photocathode radio-frequency gun is focused by quadrupole magnets to several hundred microns and collided with a 120-mJ, 60-fs laser beam. The generated X-ray is detected by a micro-channel plate. The energy, pulse duration, and number of X-ray photons is estimated to be 290.4 eV, 1 ps, and 6.4×103, respectively.