For those that missed it, you can see the recorded talk here: https://youtu.be/HVdZxWvleDc
In the quest to generate more powerful and higher frequency sources of radiation, researchers invented technologies that produce very high-power beams of electrons at high voltages. These electron-beam technologies have proven so useful that today we find them in radar systems, microwave ovens, and even x-ray lasers. Their story begins in the 1930s, when graduate students Russell and Sigurd Varian invented the Klystron. The device was driven by a non-relativisitic electron beam that provided high gain, high output power, and good efficiency for amplifying microwaves—a use that was immediately adapted in radar systems during WWII. Forty years later, the Free Electron Laser, which was based on similar principles, opened the door to using relativistic, fast-moving electron beams. In this talk, Prof. Eckstein will highlight the history of electron-beam devices and explain the common thread of electron bunching that makes these coherent sources possible, even without Plank’s constant appearing anywhere.
