Optical loop framing

The ATA provides an electron beam pulse of 70-ns duration at a 1-Hz rate. Our present optical diagnostics technique involve the imaging of the visible light generated by the beam incident onto the plant of a thin sheet of material. It has already been demonstrated that the light generated has a sufficiently fast temporal reponse in performing beam diagnostics. Notwithstanding possible beam emittance degradation due to scattering in the thin sheet, the observation of beam spatial profiles with relatively high efficiencies has provided data complementary to that obtained from beam wall current monitors and from various x-ray probes and other electrical probes. The optical image sensor consists of a gated, intensified television system. The gate pulse of the image intensifier can be appropriately delayed to give frames that are time-positioned from the head to the tail of the beam with a minimum gate time of 5-ns. The spatial correlation of the time frames from pulse to pulse is very good for a stable electron beam; however, when instabilities do occur, it is difficult to properly assess the spatial composition of the head and the tail of the beam on a pulse-to-pulse basis. Multiple gating within a pulse duration becomes desirablemore » but cannot be performed because the recycle time (20-ms) of the TV system is much longer than the beam pulse. For this reason we have developed an optical-loop framing technique that will allow the recording of two frames within one pulse duration with our present gated/intensified TV system.« less