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Letter

Nature Physics 2, 749–753 (1 November 2006) | doi:10.1038/nphys442

Snapshots of laser wakefields

N. H. Matlis , S. Reed , S. S. Bulanov , V. Chvykov , G. Kalintchenko , T. Matsuoka , P. Rousseau , V. Yanovsky , A. Maksimchuk , S. Kalmykov , G. Shvets & M. C. Downer

Tabletop plasma accelerators can now produce GeV-range electron beams and femtosecond X-ray pulses, providing compact radiation sources for medicine, nuclear engineering, materials science and high-energy physics. In these accelerators, electrons surf on electric fields exceeding 100|[thinsp]|GeV|[thinsp]|m|[minus]|1, which is more than 1,000 times stronger than achievable in conventional accelerators.