Laser-plasma accelerators can accelerate particles over distances that are up to 1,000 times shorter than those required by conventional accelerators. The technology promises compact systems that have enormous potential to open up new applications for accelerators, for example in medicine or industry. However, the current prototypes have one drawback: most can only accelerate a few particle bunches per second—not enough for practical applications.
DESY’s new flagship laser, KALDERA, has now made a decisive step forward: Driving the compact plasma accelerator MAGMA, the innovative laser has been shown to accelerate 100 particle bunches per second. This increased repetition rate opens the path to actively stabilize the plasma accelerator performance in the future, which will bring it a good deal closer to first applications.
In conventional accelerators, radio-frequency waves are fed into so-called resonators. These waves can give a push to particles passing through them—in most cases electrons—and transfer energy to them. In order to raise the particles to high energy levels, numerous resonators have to be connected in series. This makes the systems long and expensive.
