Transverse Emittance Measurements and Optimization for a Superconducting RF Photon Injector

As one of the most promising continuous wave (CW) injectors for high brightness electron
beams, ELBE superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) gun has been developed and optimized.
This gun can provide beams with good quality for the ELBE user facility. One important
aspect is to measure the transverse emittance accurately and efficiently. This thesis contributes
to the progress in this field and focuses on measuring and optimizing the transverse emittance
for ELBE SRF gun. The slit-scan, quadrupole scan, and an advanced thermal emittance
measurement method, called single shot cathode transverse momentum imaging, have been
studied and applied at this SRF gun.
A fast slit-scan emittance measurement system consisting of a continuously moving slit and
a yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG) screen has been developed. During the beamlet image
processing, the machine learning (ML) algorithms have been integrated in order to improve
the signal-to-noise ratio effectively. This is the first time to successfully apply the ML in such
diagnostic methods. The measurement speed is improved about ten times and accuracy is also
better than before. The errors of slit-scan emittance measurement, arising from slit position,
beamlet intensity, center position and root mean square (RMS) width uncertainties, have been
analyzed. The quadrupole scan emittance measurement method has been studied too. The
influence of the space charge effect on quadrupole scan results has been revealed. The error of
the quadrupole scan measurement has also been analyzed.
To compensate the transverse emittance due to space charge effect, a superconducting (SC)
solenoid is placed as close as possible to the exit of the SRF cavity. Another important part in
this thesis is the investigation and optimization of the SC solenoid. The spherical aberration
of the SC solenoid has been analyzed. In order to decrease it, a new yoke geometry of SC
solenoid for the next generation SRF gun has been designed. The multipole transverse field
modes of the solenoid caused by an axis tilt have bean analyzed by means of simulations and
experimental investigations using a formalism fitting method. The influences of the multipole
modes, especially the quadrupole and sextupole fields on transverse emittance have been
calculated. A pair of a normal quadrupole and a skew quadrupole, called correctors, have been
adopted to compensate the influence of the quadrupole field on the emittance.
The cathode intrinsic emittance can contribute a non-negligible part to the transverse emittance.
So in this thesis the cathode intrinsic emitttance is measured too. The single shot transverse
momentum imaging method has been used to measure the cathode intrinsic emittance. A
further advantage is that this method allows to determine the transverse momentum locally at
different positions on the cathode.