Accelerating Electrons with Light

In a new technique, light pulses accelerate electrons more efficiently than traditional accelerators.

Particles in today’s accelerators are driven by radiofrequency waves, but using visible light should in principle allow for much smaller machines. In Physical Review Letters and Nature [1], two teams report the first experimental demonstrations of the direct use of visible light fields to accelerate electrons more rapidly than in conventional accelerators. The teams used tiny structures to generate electric field patterns that could accelerate the particles. Combining these structures and other components could one day lead to compact, laboratory-sized accelerators to drive versatile x-ray sources, perform particle experiments, or provide medical treatments.