Terahertz Radiation at ANKA, the New Synchrotron Light Source in Karlsruhe

ANKA is a new synchrotron light source atthe Karlsruhe Research Center in southwestGermany. The acronym stands for Ångstrøm Source Karlsruhe.The ANKA-IR beamline provides a highbrilliance infrared beam through the near,mid and far-infrared range. Thefar-infrared range is of particularinterest, since at frequencies lower thanaround 200 cm^-1 (6 THz) synchrotronlight begins to outperform conventionalthermal sources in terms of total intensityas well as brilliance. The extraction ofthe entire flux is a challenge in the THzrange, since the natural verticaldivergence of synchrotron radiationincreases with wavelength and the openingangle for collection is limited by designconstraints. At ANKA-IR, this problem issolved by the collection of radiationemitted from a bending magnet edge source,which has a much smaller verticaldivergence than conventional synchrotronradiation emitted from the constantmagnetic field region within the dipolemagnet. Edge radiation at ANKA permits theextraction of the entire infrared flux downto around 100 cm^-1 (3 THz) while withconventional synchrotron radiation thiswould only be the case for frequencies downto 2500 cm^-1. ANKA-IR provides usableintensity down to 4 cm^-1 (120 GHz).