Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

At the ELBE Free Electron Laser (FEL) at Forschungszentrum Dresden Rossendorf (FZD) electron bunches having lengths between 1 to 4 ps are generated. It is required to compress these electron bunches to lenghts below 1 ps which necessitates diagnosis of the electron bunch parameters. We use a Martin-Puplett interferometer (MPI) which is a modification of the Michelson interferometer, where the beams are linearly polarized at specific orientations. It measures the autocorrelation function of the coherent transition radiation (CTR) from a view screen which is an optical replication of the electron bunch.
The interferometer setup consists of various optical components like polarizers, beam splitter, mirrors and Golay cell detectors. In our measurement a wire grid was used as a polarizer and also as a beam splitter. A thorough understanding of the response of the optical components, as a function of the CTR wavelength range of our interest, is required for correct analysis of the measured signal. We have therefore simulated the response of the entire interferometer setup including the diffraction losses and the window transmission and compared the results to experimental measurements.