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New technologies, such as "plasma wakefield" accelerators, can boost electrons to very high energies in very short distances. This could lead to linear accelerators that are 100 times more powerful, boosting electrons to a given energy in one hundredth the distance. 

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Advanced accelerators

This image, magnified 25,000 times, shows a section of an accelerator-on-a-chip.

Press Release

The high-energy upgrade will keep the U.S. at the forefront of X-ray science and technology, allowing researchers to advance fields such as sustainability, human...

LCLS-II-HE
News Feature

David Cesar, Julia Gonski and W.L. Kimmy Wu will each receive $2.75 million issued over five years for their research in X-ray and ultrafast...

Early Career Award Winners 2024
News Feature

A new report outlines suggestions for federal investments needed for the next generation of transformative discoveries in particle physics and cosmology, including priority projects...

A web of dark matter, in which galaxies are forming.
News Feature

What could smaller particle accelerators look like in the future? SLAC scientists are working on innovations that could give more researchers access to accelerator...

This is a graphic image of particles moving through plasma during plasma wakefield acceleration.
News Feature

The future of experimental particle physics is exciting –  and energy intensive. SLAC physicists are thinking about how to make one proposal, the Cool...

The view down a copper tube.
Photograph

A prototype section of the proposed Cool Cooper Collider beam tunnel.

The view down a copper tube.
Press Release

With up to a million X-ray flashes per second, 8,000 times more than its predecessor, it transforms the ability of scientists to explore atomic-scale...

LCLS-II first light
News Feature

They used synthetic diamond crystals as mirrors to make X-ray pulses run laps inside a vacuum chamber, demonstrating a key process needed for future...

Two scientists in a control room full of computer monitors that allow them to adjust diamond mirrors in their CBXFEL experiment
News Feature

The long – but not too long – cavity would ping-pong X-ray pulses inside of a particle accelerator facility to help capture nature’s fastest...

This cartoon figure shows how the cavity-based X-ray free electron laser works in general. The electron beam (blue) travels through an undulator (brown), which causes the beam to release X-ray pulses. These pulses bounce around a set of four mirrors, helping them become coherent, before they continue down the accelerator to experimental halls.
News Feature

The algorithm pairs machine-learning techniques with classical beam physics equations to avoid massive data crunching.

This is a representation of a particle beam traveling through an accelerator.
Illustration

Scientists use a series of magnets to transform an electron bunch into a narrow current spike which then produces a very intense attosecond X-ray...

XLEAP illustration