(PhysOrg.com) -- Commissioning has begun at the Japan-based Accelerator Test Facility 2, a major technology test bed for future accelerators, including the proposed International Linear Collider, or ILC. During the two-year commissioning process, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory physicists are shuttling back and forth to KEK, the high-energy accelerator lab in Tsukuba, to join an international team of scientists working around the clock to get the accelerator's final focus system up and running. When fully commissioned, this system will squeeze the facility's electron beam down to a slender ribbon just 35 nanometers thick—the narrowest beam of particles ever achieved.