Devices and techniques for the characterization of inverse Compton sources

Innovative intense monochromatic x/ -ray sources are of great interest in the scientific community. A large number of applications in basic and applied physics research, as well as in different science fields, require an intense, monochromatic or quasi-monochromatic, tunable radiation source. Synchrotron radiation is optimal for low energy applications (< 100 keV) but the size and cost of synchrotron facilities prevent a large-scale spread of this kind of source, that is fundamental for applications such as routine clinical diagnostic. Moreover, synchrotron light is not suitable in the case of high energy applications (> 1 MeV), needed primarily for nuclear physics experiments, due to limitations on the maximum energy obtainable for monochromatic beams with synchrotron light. Alternative sources that can overcome such limitations are those based on inverse Compton interaction, which permit to obtain compact and cost-effective sources for low energy applications and can provide monochromatic collimated beam in the high energy range. Inverse Compton is the process in which a photon interacts with a relativistic electron, in this case the electron can transfer a fraction of its energy in the collision, resulting in a backscattered photon with an increased energy. This process can be used to produce hard x/ -rays by the backscattering of low-energy laser photons by a relativistic electron beam. A radiation source based on this interaction is usually called an inverse Compton source, alternatively, it can be called Thomson source when the energies involved allow a classical description of the process, as in the case of Thomson scattering. The work described in this dissertation concerns the devices and techniques developed to perform a characterization of inverse Compton sources. In particular, the work is focused on two major projects: BEATS2 experiment and ELI-NP-GBS proposal of E-Gammas collaboration. BEATS2 is an experiment funded by Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) aimed to study medical applications, specially to mammographic imaging, of the SL-Thomson source of SPARC-LAB at the INFN-LNF that will be commissioned in the first half of 2013. E-Gammas is an international collaboration composed by several Universities and Institutions including: INFN and Universit`a di Roma La Sapienza, in Italy, Universitè de Paris Sud and IN2P3/CNRS, in France, and ASTeC of STFC, in UK. The collaboration is aimed to the preparation of a Technical Design Report for the ELI-NP Gamma Beam System (ELI-NP-GBS) to be commissioned by the end of 2016. This Gamma Beam System will be a high energy inverse Compton source, included in the Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear physics (ELI-NP), an European project dedicated to the development of laser beams and the generation of high intensity gamma beams for frontier research in nuclear physics.