Ultrashort electron bunch length measurement with diffraction radiation deflector

In this paper, we propose a novel method to measure electron bunch length with a diffraction radiation (DR) deflector which is composed of a DR radiator and three beam position monitors (BPMs). When an electron beam passes through a metallic aperture which is tilted by 45 degrees with respect to its trajectory, backward DR that propagates perpendicular to the beam’s trajectory is generated which adds a transverse deflection to the beam as a result of momentum conservation. The deflection is found to be largely dependent on the bunch length and could be easily observed with a downstream BPM. Detailed investigations show that this method has wide applicability, high temporal resolution, and great simplicity.