SLAC Public Lecture: Particle Accelerator on a Chip

Tuesday evening, May 24, 2011, Christopher McGuinness of SLAC's Accelerator Research Division will present a free public lecture, "Particle Accelerator on a Chip."

Accelerators are huge and expensive, miles-long tubes that produce high-energy particles to smash protons and make intense X-ray beams. Twenty-first-century technology has taken us from the room-sized ENIAC mainframe computer to microprocessors that fit in a pocket. Can it do the same for particle accelerators? One approach showing promise is to use fiber optics or silicon crystals to build the particle pathways, and high-power lasers as the driver. In this lecture, McGuinness will discuss how SLAC researchers are assembling such systems at SLAC to build the "accelerator on a chip."

The lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in SLAC's Panofsky Auditorium. All are invited. Please be prepared to show a photo ID to enter the SLAC main gate at Sand Hill Road and Sage Lane.

For more about this lecture series, see the SLAC Public Lecture website.