Speaker
Description
ThomX is a compact Compton-based X-ray source demonstrator constructed and operated at IJCLab on the Université Paris-Saclay campus (Orsay, France). The facility comprises a 70 MeV linac, a transfer line, an 18 m storage ring and an extraction line. At the interaction point, laser pulses stored in a high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity collide with circulating electron bunches, generating X-rays with energies up to 90 keV. During the 2023-2025 commissioning campaigns, X-ray production was achieved with a stored laser power of about 90 kW and an average flux of approximately $10^{10}$ photons/s at 45 keV. These results confirm the feasibility of a compact, high-flux Compton source delivering hard X-rays in the 45-90 keV range. This contribution will outline the main challenges associated with compactness, low-energy operation and nonlinear beam dynamics. It will also present the recent advances in beam commissioning and X-ray source characterization. The demonstrated performances and perspectives toward the nominal regime of 1 nC bunch charge, 700 kW stored laser power and $>10^{12}$ photons/s X-ray flux will be discussed.
Funding Agency
The present work was financed by the French National Research Agency (ANR) under the Equipex program ANR-EQPX-51.
