Seminar by Prof. Siddharth Karkare
Title: Ultracold and Ultrafast Electron Beams for Microscopy and Accelerators
Speaker: Prof. Siddharth Karkare, Arizona State University USA
Abstract: Ultrafast pulsed electron beams, spanning femtosecond to picosecond timescales, drive some of today's most powerful scientific tools. They are essential for ultrafast electron diffraction and microscopy (UED/M), revealing atomic motion in real time, and power large-scale facilities such as X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFELs) and particle colliders. The brightness of these pulsed electron beams, i.e. how densely and coherently electrons can be packed, directly determines the resolution of UED/M, the wavelength reach and output power of XFELs, and the ability of colliders to probe rare scattering events. These electron beams are produced by illuminating photoemissive materials with ultrafast lasers inside strong accelerating fields. In this talk, I will discuss how the advances we have made in photoemission physics, materials design, nanophotonics, and plasmonics have resulted in the generation of cold electron beams with unprecedented brightness, opening new possibilities for sharper imaging, more compact X-ray lasers, and deeper insights into fundamental physics.
Venue: Seminar Room (202), Physics Department IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai