Formation and Acceleration of Uniformly-Filled Ellipsoidal Electron Bunches Obtained via Space-Charge-Driven Expansion from a Cesium-Telluride Photocathode

We report the experimental generation, acceleration and characterization of a uniformly-filled electron bunch obtained via space-charge-driven expansion (often referred to as “blow-out regime”) in an L-band (1.3-GHz) radiofrequency photoinjector. The beam is photoemitted from a Cesium-Telluride semiconductor photocathode using a short ($<200$ fs) ultraviolet laser pulse. The produced electron bunches are characterized with conventional diagnostics and the signatures of their ellipsoidal character is observed. We especially demonstrate the production of ellipsoidal bunches with charges up to $\sim 0.5$ nC corresponding to a $\sim 20$-fold increase compared to previous experiments with metallic photocathodes.