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The compact accelerator that keeps electrons on the straight and narrow

A silicon-based device uses laser light to accelerate electrons and simultaneously shape them into a narrow beam. The principle could be used to build microchip accelerators that do away with bulky conventional designs.
  1. Yelong Wei

    1. Yelong Wei is in the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province 230029, China.

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Whether they’re used for cancer treatment or testing the fundamental tenets of physics, particle accelerators are designed to drive narrow beams of charged particles to extremely high speeds and energies — and they typically take up a lot of space. But what if these speeds and energies could be achieved on a microchip no bigger than a fingertip? One way to do so involves increasing the rate of energy transfer so that the particles can be propelled to high energies over very short distances. Writing in Nature, Chlouba et al.1 report an accelerator that can increase the energy of particles by 43% in just 500 micrometres. Realizing a fingertip-sized accelerator no longer seems like science fiction.

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Nature 622, 467-468 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03101-7

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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