Physicists achieve record-breaking electron beam output and current

A team of physicists from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California produced the highest peak power electron beam ever produced. The team publishes the papers in physical review letters.

Over the years, scientists have found new uses for powerful laser light, from splitting atoms to mimic conditions within other planets. In this new study, the researchers increased the power of the electron beam, giving them some of the same capabilities.

The idea behind the new, more powerful beam was very simple, the team admits. I was thinking about how to make it happen, but it was difficult. The basic idea is to pack as much as possible in the shortest possible time. In their work, they generated 100 kiropes of current in just one second.

This task involved transmitting a high-energy electron beam around the accelerator. In such devices, electrons are pushed at high speed by a powerful magnet. They ride radio waves in a vacuum. Teams compare the electrons to race cars that drive oval tracks. In that case, the electrons were accelerated to about 99% of the speed of light. But when the electrons reach the turn of the track, they have to swing, which slows them down. To make a turn faster, race cars (electronics) need to go straighter than standard.

To take that straight path, researchers sent 1 mm long electrons around the track. In this configuration, the frontal electrons moved along fewer partial parts of the radio waves. In other words, it came out from a turn with low energy. This is a phenomenon known as chirp. The researchers were then able to use magnets to bend the electrons left, right, then turn left again, then back to their original path.

Secondly, the magnet deflected lower energy electrons than those with higher energy, so it was necessary to take a slightly longer path than those with lower density. Therefore, the longer path allowed high-energy electrons to catch up, compressing the strings of the electrons. The researchers then added another magnet, bringing it, exchanging energy for light, making the Chartope even more dramatic.

They then ran the strings multiple times around the track, each time making the beam more powerful, but shorter. At its peak, the pulse length was only 0.3 micrometers.

The researchers suggest that their technology could potentially produce new tasks involving chemical processes, or perhaps new types of plasma, or reveal more about the nature of empty spaces.

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