A laser particle accelerator

Particle accelerators are usually associated with large national facilities. Because photons are able to impart momentum to electrons, there are also efforts to develop laser-based particle accelerators. Sapra et al. developed an integrated particle accelerator using photonic inverse design methods to optimize the interaction between the light and the electrons. They show that an additional kick of around 0.9 kilo–electron volts (keV) can be given to a bunch of 80-keV electrons along just 30 micrometers of a specially designed channel. Such miniaturized dielectric laser accelerators could open up particle physics to a number of scientific disciplines.

Sapra, N. V., Yang, K. Y., Vercruysse, D., Leedle, K. J., Black, D. S., England, R. J., ... & Byer, R. L. (2020). On-chip integrated laser-driven particle accelerator. Science, 367(6473), 79-83. doi:10.1126/science.aay5734