Particle acceleration no longer requires accelerators of several kilometers in size. By using laser technology, particle acceleration can be performed within a few centimeters. The new laser pointer tail wave field (LWFA) technology uses a single laser pulse to accelerate the electron beam to the energy level achieved by large equipment. The team led by Simon Hooker of the University of Oxford demonstrated an improved LWFA technology that uses a laser pulse array instead of a single pulse. This multi-pulse combination is expected to accelerate the electron beam thousands of times per second, compared with the single-pulse mode, thereby expanding the possibility of application.
Using LWFA technology, short and strong laser pulses can construct plasma density waves. Electrons use such waves to obtain energy, just as surfers obtain energy from ocean waves. The laser has sufficient energy to drive this process, but only a few times per second. The latest research shows that low-energy laser pulse arrays can form density waves, thereby achieving continuous acceleration. Such an array of pulses can be generated at a frequency of several thousand hertz. His team has verified this process for the first time through experiments.
Through the high-power green laser pointer device at Appleton Labs, the team reconfigured the laser to emit an array of laser pulses spaced 100 femtoseconds apart. Injecting it into the plasma, the research team obtained a plasma wave. Although this experiment did not verify the acceleration of plasma waves electrons. However, the researchers expect that the optimized laser will generate energy from the synchrotron when the repetition frequency reaches kilohertz.