A Single Shot, Sub-picosecond Beam Bunch Characterization with Electro-optic Techniques

In the past decade, the bunch lengths of electrons in accelerators have decreased dramatically to the range of a few picoseconds \cite{Uesaka94,Trotz97}. Measurement of the length as well as the longitudinal profile of these short bunches have been a topic of research in a number of institutions \cite{Uesaka97,Liu97,Hutchins00}. One of the techniques uses the electric field induced by the passage of electrons in the vicinity of a birefringent crystal to change its optical characteristics. Well-established electro-optic techniques can then be used to measure the temporal characteristics of the electron bunch. In this paper we present a novel, non-invasive, single-shot approach to improve the resolution to tens of femtoseconds so that sub-millimeter bunch length can be measured.