US team makes "accelerator on a chip" breakthrough

The achievement was reported in Nature by a team including scientists from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University.

‘We still have a number of challenges before this technology becomes practical for real-world use, but eventually it would substantially reduce the size and cost of future high-energy particle colliders for exploring the world of fundamental particles and forces,’ said Joel England, the SLAC physicist who led the experiments. ‘It could also help enable compact accelerators and X-ray devices for security scanning, medical therapy and imaging, and research in biology and materials science.’

Because it employs commercial lasers and low-cost, mass-production techniques, the researchers believe it will set the stage for new generations of so-called tabletop accelerators.

At its full potential, the new accelerator on a chip could match the accelerating power of SLAC’s two mile long linear accelerator in 100 feet, and deliver a million more electron pulses per second.