Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TWAC (THz Wave Accelerating Cavity for ultrafast science)
Período documentado: 2023-04-01 hasta 2024-09-30
Particle accelerators are devices of primary importance in a large range of applications such as fundamental particle physics, nuclear physics, light sources, imaging, neutron sources, transmutation of nuclear waste. They are also used every day for cargo inspection, medical diagnostics and radiotherapy worldwide. Electron is the easiest particle to produce and manipulate, resulting in an unequaled energy over cost ratio. However, there is an urgent and growing need to reduce the footprint of accelerators in order to lower their cost and environmental impact, from the future high-energy colliders to the portable relativistic electron source for industrial and societal applications. The radical new vision we propose will revolutionize the use of accelerators in terms of footprint, beam time delivery and electron beam properties (stability, reproducibility, monochromaticity, femtosecond-scale bunch duration), which is today only a dream for a wide range of users.
We propose developing a new structure sustaining the accelerating wave pushing up the particle energy, which will enable democratizing the access to femtosecond-scale electron bunch for ultrafast phenomena studies. This light and compact accelerator, for which we propose breaking through the current technological barriers, will open the way towards compact industrial accelerators with an energy gain gradient of more than 100 MeV/m and enlarge time access in the medical environment (preclinical and clinical phase studies). This new accelerating structure will offer a compact layout based on a multi-skill competence (nonlinear optics, High power optical source, accelerators, dosimetry) secured by industry partners. Its size and weight will for example enable it to be mounted on a robotic arm, to move around a patient for medical applications or material inspection for industrial applications.
We propose developing a new structure sustaining the accelerating wave pushing up the particle energy, which will enable democratizing the access to femtosecond-scale electron bunch for ultrafast phenomena studies. This light and compact accelerator, for which we propose breaking through the current technological barriers, will open the way towards compact industrial accelerators with an energy gain gradient of more than 100 MeV/m and enlarge time access in the medical environment (preclinical and clinical phase studies). This new accelerating structure will offer a compact layout based on a multi-skill competence (nonlinear optics, High power optical source, accelerators, dosimetry) secured by industry partners. Its size and weight will for example enable it to be mounted on a robotic arm, to move around a patient for medical applications or material inspection for industrial applications.
The first 12-month period of the TWAC project has been focused on implementing the Work Packages and developing the required coordination between them. This first reporting period was mostly dedicated to simulation studies aiming at dimensioning the different subsystems of the experimental prototype: THz source, Accelerating structure and its coupling system, Electron bunch duration diagnostic. The second reporting period of 18 months was dedicated to the realization of proof-of-principle experiments on several European facilities (the ARES electron accelerator at DESY, the PHIL accelerator at IJCLab, the LaseriX high-power laser at IJCLab, laser laboratory of the Wigner research center for physics, laser at PHLAM laboratory) with the goal to validate some of the concepts as independent subsystems which can be efficiently used on the final experimental prototype. These experimental campaigns, still ongoing for some of them, allowed obtaining important results about the THz generation process and the transport of its polarization, the characterization of the accelerating structure and its coupling system, the development of compact and advanced electron bunch duration diagnostics and the preparation of the conventional accelerator to host the experiment. All these results will now be used to finalized the design of each of the subsystems, before gathering them together as a first complete experimental prototype. Concerning the investigation on potential applications of the prototype in the medical and health sector, dosimeter detectors have been manufactured and are now ready to be tested on the prototype.