State-of-the-art electron beams for compact tools of ultrafast science.

We review state-of-the-art electron beams for single-shot megaelectronvolt ultrafast electron diffraction (MeV-UED) and compact light sources. Our primary focus is on sub-100 femtosecond electron bunches in the 2-30 MeV energy range. We demonstrate that our new and recent simulation results permit significantly improved bunch parameters for these applications.