Development of timing synchronization between RF source and laser

A picosecond pulse electron beam is produced by a photocathode RF gun driven with a picosecond Nd:YAG laser. The produced electron beam is accelerated up to 150 MeV by a S-band RF accelerator, and is used to generate high energy monochromatic femtosecond pulse X-rays based on inverse Compton scattering between the pulse electron beam and femtosecond pulse Ti:sapphire laser light. In order to produce such short pulses of electrons and X-rays, a high precision timing synchronization is necessary between the lasers and RF source which is used to extract and accelerate the electron pulse in the photocathode RF gun and the S-band RF accelerator. The typical requirement of the temporal control precision is <1 ps for the production of the picosecond pulse electron beam and <100 fs for the generation of the femtosecond pulse X-rays.