X-ray generation from slanting laser–Compton scattering for future energy-tunable Shanghai Laser Electron Gamma Source

There is great interest in the generation of energy-tunable, bright, short-pulse X/γ-ray sources, which are required in various research fields. Laser–Compton scattering (LCS) is considered to be one of the most promising methods to implement this kind of X/γ-ray source. At the 100-MeV LINAC of the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, a 2-J, 8-ns, 1064-nm, Q-switched Nd:YAG laser is brought to a slanting collision at 40° (44°) with an 112-MeV, 0.9-ns (rms) relativistic electron beam. We measured the LCS X-ray energy spectrum with a peak energy of 31.73±0.22stat±1.64syst keV and a peak width (rms) of 0.74±0.26stat±0.03syst keV. This preliminary investigation was carried out to understand the feasibility of developing an energy-tunable X/γ-ray source. Based on this study, the future Shanghai Laser Electron Gamma Source (SLEGS) at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) can be constructed to be not only an energy-tunable γ-ray source by guiding the laser incident angle from laser–Compton scattering, but also a high flux (∼1010 photons/s or even higher) γ-ray source by adding a laser super-cavity.