Science Daily January 2, 2020
The size and cost of conventional radio-frequency accelerators limit the utility and reach of this technology. Dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) provide a compact and cost-effective solution to this problem by driving accelerator nanostructures with visible or near-infrared pulsed lasers, resulting in a 104 reduction of scale. A team of researchers in the US (Stanford University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) present an experimental demonstration of a waveguide-integrated DLA that was designed using a photonic inverse-design approach. By comparing the measured electron energy spectra with particle-tracking simulations, they inferred a maximum energy gain of 0.915 kilo–electron volts over 30 micrometers, corresponding to an acceleration gradient of 30.5 mega–electron volts per meter. On-chip acceleration provides the possibility for a completely integrated mega–electron volt-scale DLA. Accelerator-on-a-chip technology could also lead to new cancer radiation therapies delivering electron beam radiation directly to a tumor, leaving healthy tissue unaffected…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Subatomic particle collisions illustration (stock image). Credit: © Peter Jurik / Adobe Stock