Abstract
Particles at relativistic energies form the basis of acceleration science. The emergence of terahertz-driven acceleration promises vastly smaller and cost-efficient accelerators; however, the field strength inside the acceleration structure has hitherto prevented the energy gain from reaching the megaelectronvolt range. Here we demonstrate an electron energy gain of up to 1.1 MeV and an effective acceleration gradient of up to 210 MV m−1 driven by terahertz surface waves, using their strong confinement to the waveguide and the fundamental transverse magnetic mode that is favourable for acceleration. The discrepancy in the velocity between the terahertz surface waves and electrons enables potential phase-space control, including temporal compression and spatial focusing. We expect these proof-of-principle results to enable the development of a tunable and highly efficient electron accelerator driven by terahertz surface waves for application in compact microscopy, radiation sources and cancer therapies.
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Data availability
The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Y. Liao from the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics and W. Chu from Zhangjiang Laboratory for support, advice and discussions. This work was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFA1604401); the Strategic Priority Research Program (B) (grant number XDB16); the National Natural Science Foundation of China grants 11922412, 11874372 and 12104471; the Shanghai Pilot Program for Basic Research – Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Branch; the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences; the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; the Shanghai Sailing Program grant 21YF1453900; and the 100 Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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Y.-S.Z., X.-Q.Y., L.-W.S., X.-J.W. and Y.T carried out the experimental measurements; X.-Q.Y. and Y.-S.Z. analysed the results with discussions with Y.T., L.-W.S., X.-J.W. and R.-X.L.; Y.T., L.-W.S., X.-J.W. and R.-X.L. initiated early discussions on this topic. Y.T. and R.-X.L. conceived and supervised the project. All authors contributed to the project and the writing of the manuscript.
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Nature Photonics thanks Nicholas Matlis, Emilio Nanni and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Comparison of the THz electric field inside the DLW.
a. A snapshot of the simulated electric field inside the DLW when free-space TM01 mode THz radiation was coupled by a focusing lens into the DLW. The energy coupling efficiency for this scenario was 52%, without considering the energy loss during mode conversion. b. Simulated THz field when an identical THz pulse was coupled to the DLW by a metal wire. Although the energy coupling efficiency was 85% for this situation (D = 10 mm), the maximal acceleration field (marked in blue) for the wire-coupling case is 2-fold larger than that of free-space coupling. This higher field strength c arises from the less dispersive waveform and hence the shorter pulse duration of the THz pulse owing to the almost dispersionless waveguiding nature of the THz surface wave on a metal wire.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Exemplification of the electron spectra for different values of D.
a–f Measured electron energy spectra. g–l Integrated beam energy spectra corresponding to a–f. For comparison, four shots for each surface wave traveling distance D are exemplified. These shots are shown in g–l with pink lines, where the highlighted red line indicates the mean value of the data. Note that, bifurcations in some of the spectra images arise possibly from the clockwise and anticlockwise electron trajectories as they revolve around the wire.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Electron energy distribution for ‘no THz inside the DLW’ condition.
The opaque red line indicates the mean value of 15 single-shot results with an FWHM spectrum width of 60% and a central energy of 1.7 MeV.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Transverse spatial distributions of the electrons impinging on the scintillation screen and recorded by the EMCCD.
a, the electrons were emitted directly from the wire. b, the electrons went through the DLW. Note that, in our experiment, since the iron shield with a 1-mm-diameter central hole is fixed 13 mm downstream of the DLW, the electron profiles shown here only represent those who have passed through the shield centre.
Supplementary information
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Yu, XQ., Zeng, YS., Song, LW. et al. Megaelectronvolt electron acceleration driven by terahertz surface waves. Nat. Photon. 17, 957–963 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01251-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01251-8
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