Kilohertz-Rate MeV Ultrafast Electron Diffraction for Time-resolved Materials Studies

Ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) enables direct insight into structural dynamics of solids. Relativistic MeV-scale electron beams yield access to high-momentum scattering and preserve beam coherence, yet their application at high repetition rates for high-sensitivity UED has been limited. We discuss the High Repetition-rate Electron Scattering (HiRES) instrument at Berkeley Lab and its first applications to UED of metallic films and quantum materials. HiRES employs a state-of-the-art photoinjector with RF bunch compression to generate high-brightness, relativistic 0.75 MeV electron pulses with up to 10⁵-10⁶ el./pulse and with highest achievable coherence length of 10 nm. The resulting high momentum range (±10 Å^-1) yields access over multiple Brillouin zones. The sub-500 fs electron pulses are provided at 0.1-250 kHz repetition rate, and combined with optical pumping via a 1.03 µm fiber amplifier enable UED of cryogenically cooled materials. We will show examples of first experiments including transient Debye-Waller dynamics in ultrathin metals at kHz repetition rate as well as studies of charge density waves in 2D materials.