Periodic Reporting for period 2 - NeXource (Next-generation Plasma-based Electron Beam Sources for High-brightness Photon Science)
Período documentado: 2021-10-01 hasta 2023-02-28
The overarching objective of NeXource is to produce 1000x smaller and at the same time 100,000x brighter electron beams, thereby opening up completely new capabilities and at the same time democratizing particle accelerators by making them smaller, cheaper and simpler.
One success highlight is the experimental demonstration of a new class of plasma accelerators, so called hybrid-laser-plasma wakefield accelerators. Here, electron beams from a compact laser-plasma-accelerator are then used to drive the plasma wave with the desired characteristics. A popular summary can be found here: https://www.strath.ac.uk/whystrathclyde/news/2021/anewtypeofminiatureplasmaparticleaccelerator/ This “hybrid” plasma wakefield accelerator platform was then used to realize several electron beam injection methods, and milestone towards the realization of plasma photocathodes with such systems was obtained recently, a summary can be found here: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v15/s160
This rapid progress in the hybrid plasma wakefield accelerator arena is driven forward as a European collaboration of researchers from the UK, Germany and France, and is also an important element in the EuPRAXIA project, which is now on the ESFRI roadmap of large European infrastructures.
Meanwhile, progress ramps up at Stanford in the SLAC FACET-II facility, where the electron beam will be used to realize advanced versions of plasma photocathodes in the E-310: Trojan Horse-II collaboration.
In the future, advanced experiments are in preparation that will demonstrate the full potential of plasma photocathodes with both types of accelerators.
At the same time, in a related effort the NeXource PI and their team is working on the design of novel X-ray lasers, anticipating the further success of plasma photocathodes and ultrabright electron beam production, and planning their exploitation.