Proposal for an Electron Accelerator Using an Optical Maser

Abstract

Among many possible applications of the extremely high brightness temperature and the radiation density obtainable with the optical maser, a high energy electron accelerator is proposed and discussed in this paper. It consists of a cylindrical tube of maser material excited by a pumping radiation through an interference filter coated on its outer surface and, it generates an oscillation in a TM0NM type mode. An optical peak power of 10 kw/cm2 was calculated to accelerate electrons by 109 ev/meter. A gas-filled cavity is proposed for velocity matching. Selection of the particular mode might be made by placing a periodically printed absorption layer on the inner surface of the maser cylinder. However, mode separation would be extremely difficult because of thermal expansion of the maser material.