GeV Acceleration In 3 Centimeters

ZonkerWilliam writes, "Here is a very interesting article, for the scientific community at least, on an advancement in laser wakefield particle accelerators. Being able to accelerate electrons to 1 Gev in the space of 3.3 cm calls up visions of portable devices that can be used anywhere: think of portable cancer therapies, if they can do the same for positrons, portable PET scans, possible use in compact fusion devices, capturing the dearly departed, etc. The uses are mind boggling." From the article: "By comparison, SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, boosts electrons to 50 GeV over a distance of two miles... The Berkeley Lab group and their Oxford collaborators... achieve a 50th of SLAC's beam energy in just one-100,000th of SLAC's length." I doubt that this tech will fit on a table top anytime soon. The article quotes the Berkeley researcher: "We believe we can [get to 10 GB] with an accelerator less than a meter long — although we'll probably need 30 meters' worth of laser path."

Comments

Power (Have They Got It)

[vG_NeSS_Vg]

One of the major issues with the deployment of such portable technology is the power requirements. If they could get it to run off solar power, that would be a major boon to the less wartorn parts of Africa.

Forgive me for my lack of knowledge

[Khyber]

But if you only need 30 meters of laser path, wouldn't it be possible to just use different mirrors to reflect within the chamber to obtain the length needed, and can't you do it thanks to the light wavelength in nano (or pico??) meters?

I'm not that educated in lasers, it wasn't as big of a study as mass-power mini railguns (no joking) to me. Someone PLEASE inform me and nobody bother modding me, I just want answers for my education.

Re:Forgive me for my lack of knowledge

[deglr6328]

No, the laser light is turned INTO the energy of the electron beam. It is not infinitely reusable.

That said, I don't see very many posts yet which address the central importance of this news. So let me do that now. THIS IS HUGE HUGE HUGE NEWS. I would be shocked if the LOASIS group weren't on stage with the king of Sweden in a decade or so. Seriously, that's how big this is. No one expected things to happen this fast in wakefield acceleration. No one. Just two years ago I posted a story here about the latest achievement of the same wakefield acceleration research group. They were then at 80 MeV electron energies over millimeters of acceleration distance using a 10 terawatt laser pulse. With 1,000-2,000 trillion watt (petawatt) lasers coming on line in the next few years and this new multi-cm acceleration distance possibility it is not beyond the realm of the plausible to expect to see hundred GeV, possibly even TeV energies coming out of these things. It takes the Stanford linear electron accelerator 2 miles to accelerate its 50 GeV electron positron beams! What we are witnessing is nothing short of a revolution in particle acclerators that will open up new frontiers of high TeV scale particle physics faster than anyone ever thought possible. This is the sort of breakthrough that happens once in 3 or 4 decades.... if you're lucky.

Imagine

[mnmn]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!

No seriously. If you can get 1GeV in 3cm and 10GeV in a few meters, the LHC is redundant before it got completed.

It would kick ass if a group of undergrads somewhere complete an accelerator with the energy of the LHC and start testing the weak theory days before the LHC becomes operational. What was the cost of it again?

Sadly, the responses to this confirm

[Flying pig]

That we do have a real crisis in physics education. (Here in the UK, having had to pay bonuses to attract maths teachers, the Government is now making similar efforts with physics - rather late.)

Reading the responses, there is frequently a lack of understanding of just how big this stuff is, just what it takes to produce things like wakefield accelerators and the difference between instantaneous power in watts and available energy.

Which reminds me of a true story. One company I worked for, the MD (aka CEO) decided we had to have a carbon dioxide laser to replace the ruby laser in one of our products. He talked to an academic researcher and asked how big the laser would need to be. The researcher said 10cm long and was promptly hired.

Six months later he had a prototype. The laser was a ceramic tube with fittings on a stand, genuinely about 150mm long with the fittings. Behind it was a room full of high voltage equipment, giant capacitors, carbon dioxide cylinders, extractor fans and, in fact, a water cooling system connected to a pressure main.

It took the MD a litle time to realise that this stuff was all part of making the laser go. He then asked when it would all be reduced in size to fit into a hand held box. The researcher's response? "You never told me you wanted the electrics to go in a box. You just said you wanted a four inch long laser."

Re:A slight misunderstanding

[khallow]

Fusion, of course, has nothing to do with accelerating electrons.

But it sometimes has something to do with accelerating charged ions. For example, accelerating protons at a target of 7Li or 11B could induce some degree of aneutronic fusion (ie, little of the fusion outcome would be energy-stealing neutrons). I don't think it'd be anywhere near breakeven, but it's a start.

Re:A slight misunderstanding

[Kontinuum]

There are a few PET/SPECT isotopes that require you to have a nearby cyclotron: 11C (20 minute half-life) and 82Rb (76 second half-life) for example. The vast majority of clinical studies are done using 18F (109 minutes), so generally speaking, you are right, you don't need to have the cyclotron too nearby. But, for some applications, it is in fact necessary.

That said, I agree, it's very hard to see an application of laser-wakefield acceleration of electrons to PET.