Spontaneous coherent cyclotron emission from a short laser-kicked electron buncn

Ponderomotive kicking of an electron bunch by the field of a laser pulse is proposed as a method for generating coherent cyclotron emission. It is shown that the imparted gyro-rotation can provide selective RF generation in an oversized microwave system, which can be rapidly tuned over a broad frequency range. A possible realization of a moderately relativistic source of short sub-millimeter wavelength pulses is studied.