Short-pulse, high-brightness X-ray production with the PLEIADES Thomson-scattering source

PLEIADES is a compact, tunable, high-brightness, ultra-short-pulse, Thomson-scattering X-ray source. Picosecond pulses of hard X-rays (10-200 keV) are created by colliding an ultra-relativistic (20-100 MeV), picosecond-duration electron beam with a high-intensity, sub-picosecond, 800-nm laser pulse. Initial operation of this source has produced 78-keV X-rays with 10(6) photons per pulse using a 57-MeV, 0.3-nC, 50-mum rms width electron beam and a 180-mJ, 15-mum rms width laser pulse. The angular distribution, energy, and energy spectrum of the source are found to agree well with theory and simulations. Source optimization is expected to increase X-ray output to between 10(7) and 10(8) photons per pulse with a peak brightness approaching 10(20) photons/s/0.1% bandwidth/mm(2)/mrad(2).