Emittance measurements of shaped electron bunches from cold atoms

Cold electrons extracted from laser cooled atoms have both the spatial coherence and high current required for picosecond molecular scale imaging. Similarly, sources of cold ions provide the opportunity of ion beam milling with unprecedented resolution. Here we use arbitrary and real-time control of the electron bunch shape to measure the low emittance of electrons from a cold atom source, thus demonstrating the unique combination of bunch shaping and high transverse coherence of these novel sources.