High repetition-rate electro-optic sampling: Recent studies using photonic time-stretch

Single-shot electro-optic sampling (EOS) is a powerful characterization tool for monitoring the shape of electron bunches, and coherent synchrotron radiation pulses. For reaching high acquisition rates, an efficient possibility consists to associate classic EOS systems with the so-called photonic time-stretch technique [1]. We present recent results obtained at SOLEIL and ANKA using this strategy. In particular, we show how a high sensitivity variant of photonic time stretch [2] EOS enabled to monitor the CSR pulses emitted by short electron bunches at SOLEIL [3]. We could thus confirm in a very direct way the theories predicting an interplay between two physical processes. Below a critical bunch charge, we observe a train of identical THz pulses stemming from the shortness of the electron bunches. Above this threshold, CSR emission is dominated by drifting structures appearing through spontaneous self-organization. We also consider the association of time-stretch and EOS for recording electron bunch near fields at high repetition rate. We present preliminary results obtained at ANKA, aiming at recording the electron bunch shape evolution during the microbunching instability.