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How do you measure an event lasting less than a quadrillionth of a second? At KIT IBPT and IPQ, an answer is being developed: In the joint project TEOBAM (with DESY, HZDR, PSI, TU Darmstadt, TU Dortmund, and TH Mittelhessen), we are developing an optical measurement system designed to determine the arrival time of ultra-short electron bunches with relativistic speeds at single-digit femtosecond resolution, even at very low bunch charges.
At its heart is an electro-optic modulator (EOM) based on silicon-organic hybrid technology, developed at KIT IPQ and produced through the spin-off SilOriX. Inside the EOM, ultra-short laser pulses sample the electrical signals generated by the electron bunches with a similar principle as an extremely fast strobe light.
A key testing ground for this technology is FLUTE, IBPT's compact and flexible linear accelerator, which produces ultra-short electron bunches and intense terahertz pulses and serves as a testbed for novel diagnostic methods. There, a purpose-built pickup setup is used to test new pickup structures and EOM modules under real accelerator conditions. These measurements demonstrate how FLUTE, as a versatile accelerator infrastructure, enables cutting-edge technology development at KIT.
If the targeted performance is confirmed, the resulting metrology will not only be used at large-scale facilities such as the European XFEL, but could also open perspectives for future applications such as ultrafast electron diffraction (UED), which allows to observe atomic-scale motion.