Preliminary design of a bunching system for the CLIC polarized electron source

Major parameters of the CLIC and ILC electron sources are given in Table I. It is shown that the CLIC source needs to provide 312 15-ps-long 2-GHz microbunches. There are two approaches to achieve the time structure [2]: one is to develop a 2-GHz optical pulse train, and the other to develop a 156-ns-long CW optical pulse and use an RF bunching system to generate 312 2-GHz microbunches. The former scheme may ease the RF bunching system but still need it to bunch 100-ps of microbunch down to 15-ps level. Otherwise, a huge amount of energy spread is accumulated when the beam is accelerated through downstream 2-GHz accelerator. In addition, in the former scheme, the space charge is high and surface charge is not yet proven in the parameter regime and 2-GHz mode locked laser is challenging. The latter scheme needs a high-efficiency bunching system to generate 312 15-ps microbunches with 2-GHz repetition rate but it has some notable advantages: a 156-ns CW laser technique is matured, and the charge limit behavior in the scheme is better characterized than that in the former case, as listed in the table. This note presents a design and modeling of the bunching system for the latter scheme to convert a 156-ns CW pulse to 312 15-ps long 2-GHz microbunches.