Instrumentation developments for production and characterisation of Inverse Compton Scattering X-rays and first results with a 17 MeV electron beam

An X-ray Compton source is under development at the ELSA facility. The electron beam coming from the ELSA linear accelerator interacts with a laser beam to generate an X-ray flux in the direction of the electron beam. With a 17 MeV electron beam and a 532 nm laser, the resulting X-ray maximal energy is around 11 keV. The beams visualization at the interaction point is achieved via an aluminum retractable bevel-edge with an OTR surface on one side and a slightly roughened surface on the other. Thanks to an optical beamsplitter, beam images are both transmitted to a CCD camera and to a streak camera to manage the spatial and temporal overlap of the bunches. Careful beam management and electron background noise minimization were both required to observe the first Inverse Compton Scattering X-ray profile of this source on radio-luminescent imaging plates.