Petawatt Laser Used To Drive Table-top Particle Accelerator to Record Energy

“World Record for Compact Particle Accelerator”

“The researchers sped up the particles—electrons in this case—inside a nine-centimeter long tube of plasma. The speed corresponded to an energy of 4.25 giga-electron volts. The acceleration over such a short distance corresponds to an energy gradient 1000 times greater than traditional particle accelerators and marks a world record energy for laser-plasma accelerators.”

My dream is for us to be able to replicate these kinds of experiments.

Note that the petawatt laser itself is far from a table-top size item!

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Very true. However, it isn’t 17 miles long, either.