Laser Particle Accelerator

Abstract

Plasma is an attractive medium for the advanced accelerator. When combined with an ultra-intense laser, it makes an acceleration field one thousand times greater than that produced by current microwave accelerators. The major fields, which now require the particle accelerator, are not high energy physics, but the medical, industrial and low energy material fields. Over the last ten years, laser accelerator research has advanced the electron gain from 22 MeV to 200 MeV. Recently, use of a glass capillary has succeeded in increasing the plasma length, the acceleration length, from 2 mm to 10 mm. This will be a breakthrough in the development of the second generation advanced accelerator.