Development of a coherent transition radiation-based bunch length monitor with application to the APS RF thermionic gun beam optimization

We report further development of an EPICS-compatible bunch length monitor based on the autocorrelation of coherent transition radiation (CTR). In this case the monitor was used to optimize the beam from the S-band thermionic RF gun on the Advanced Photon Source (APS) linac. Bunch lengths of 400–500 fs (FWHM) were measured in the core of the beam, which corresponded to about 100-A peak current in each micropulse. The dependence of the CTR signal on the square of the beam charge for the beam core was demonstrated. We also report the first use of the beam accelerated to 217 MeV for successful visible wavelength SASE FEL experiments.