A high repetition rate time-of-flight electron energy analyzer

We demonstrate a time- of- flight electron energy analyzer that operates at an 80 MHz repetition rate. The analyzer yields an energy resolution of 40 meV for 3 eV electrons. The energy resolution limit is dominated by the detector time (or temporal) resolution. With a currently available detector with a temporal resolution of 100 ps, we predict an energy resolution of less than 1 meV for 200 meV electrons. This makes high repetition rate time- of- flight energy analyzers a promising low- technology alternative to current state- of- the- art techniques. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.