Longitudinal-to-transverse mapping for femtosecond electron bunch length measurement

A longitudinal-to-transverse mapping technique is proposed to measure the length and temporal profile of ultrashort electron bunches. In this scheme a special chicane and a radio-frequency deflecting cavity are used to transform the beam's longitudinal distribution into angular distribution which is further converted to transverse distribution after a parallel-to-point imaging beam line. With this technique, the temporal profile of the electron beam is exactly mapped to the transverse profile. This makes it possible to measure ultrashort electron bunch length with a resolution well beyond 1 femtosecond.