Small-angle Thomson scattering of ultrafast laser pulses for bright, sub-100-fs x-ray radiation

Abstract

We propose a scheme for bright sub-100-fs x-ray radiation generation using small-angle Thomson scattering. Coupling high-brightness electron bunches with high-power ultrafast laser pulses, radiation with photon energies between 8 and 40 keV can be generated with pulse duration comparable to that of the incoming laser pulse and with peak spectral brightness close to that of the third-generation synchrotron light sources of ∼1020 photons s-1 mm-2 mrad-2 per 10-3 bandwidth. A preliminary dynamic calculation is performed to understand the property of this novel scattering scheme with relativistic laser intensities. © 2002 The American Physical Society.