Description:
Reference Number: 1636
Background
Lasers and synchrotron light sources have become ubiquitous tools for
time-resolved probing of the composition and structure of matter. Governments
are prepared to meet their significant costs because they are the scientific
tools for research and development which underpin progress in
society.
Investigations of molecular and solid structure require x-rays
from today’s powerful synchrotrons and free-electron lasers (FELs). These modern
light sources are based on particle accelerator technology which makes them very
large, with areas equivalent to several football pitches, and very expensive,
with their construction alone costing hundreds of millions of Euros. Until now,
light sources have been driven by accelerators based on microwave cavities.
This conventional technology is not the only way to accelerate
particles. Researchers at the University of Strathclyde have led an
international project in collaboration with Oxford and Berkley which has
pioneered a new way of accelerating particles using lasers and used these
particles in the first demonstration of a table-top synchrotron source.
Technology
Electrostatic forces of plasma, which is fully ionised gas, can be harnessed
to provide vastly higher accelerating gradients for charged particles. By firing
an intense laser pulse from a table¬top terawatt ultra-sort pulse laser into
plasma, a density wake similar to that behind a boat on water can be excited.
The huge electric fields inside the plasma provide immense forces to accelerate
electrons to very high energies over a few millimetres whereas accelerator
conventional technology would require 10’s to 100’s of metres to achieve the
same energy.
Small bunches of electrons from the background plasma surf
down the wake wave and rapidly acquire kinetic energy from the wave, just like a
surfer catches a wave and gains energy from it to accelerate forward. The
excellent properties of electron beams produced from these so-called plasma
wakefield accelerators provides an opportunity to build ultra-compact
femtosecond light sources. Thus these table-top devices could herald a
revolution in the way science and technology is done – by making available
compact sources at a fraction of the cost of large facilities.
Key Benefits
- Significantly reduced costs
- Wide range of wavelengths: tetrahertz to x-rays leads to a wider range of
uses
- Compact sources (table top devices)
- Ultra-short pulses synchronized with lasers
- Increased monitoring is possible (in particular for x-rays)
Markets and Applications
Both particles and high energy x-rays from wakefield accelerators would be
ideal in the development of advanced detectors for medicine and nuclear and
particle physics.
The laser-driven accelerator and radiation source
developments will result in knowledge transfer both directly by providing unique
Scottish based facilities and through the direct development and
commercialisation of the sources which have the prospect of being installed in
University sized institutions.
Licensing and Development
A patent on a compact radiation source has been filed in collaboration with
Oxford and Berkeley National Laboratory.
For further information, please contact Research & Knowledge Exchange
Services:
e: rkes@strath.ac.uk t: 0141 548 3707 f: 0141 552
4409