Analysis and Design of Optical Bragg Acceleration Structures

It is demonstrated that a Bragg waveguide consisting of a series of dielectric layers may form an excellent optical acceleration structure. Confinement of the accelerating fields is achieved for both planar and cylindrical configurations by adjusting the first dielectric layer width. A typical structure made of Silica and Zirconia may support gradients of the order of 1 GV/m with an interaction impedance of a few hundreds of Ohms and with an energy velocity of less than 0.5c. An interaction impedance of about one thousand Ohms may be obtained by replacing the Zirconia with a (fictitious) material of ε = 25. Special attention is paid to the wake-field developing in such a structure. In case of a relatively small number of layers, a qualitative approach shows that the emitted power is inversely proportional to the number of micro-bunches. Quantitative results are given for a higher number of dielectric layers, showing that in comparison to a structure bounded by metallic walls, the emitted power is significantly smaller due to propagation bands allowing electromagnetic energy to escape. The efficiency of the acceleration structures is investigated and shown to have an optimum as a function of the vacuum core dimension