Scientists tame electron beams, bringing 'table top' particle accelerators a step closer

Scientists from the UK and the USA have successfully demonstrated a new technique that could help to shrink the size and cost of future particle accelerators for fundamental physics experiments and applications in materials and biomedicine.
Using the huge electric fields in laser-produced plasmas, they have accelerated beams of electrons close to the speed of light, in an important step towards the development of a working laser electron accelerator that could sit on a table top.
The researchers from Imperial College London, CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), University of Strathclyde, UK, and University of California Los Angeles, USA, report their findings in Nature today (30 September).