ERC Grants Supporting Alternative Accelerator Technologies
by Victor Malka (CNRS-ENSTA-Ecole Polytechnique), Marie Emmanuelle Couprie (SOLEIL), Ralph Assmann (DESY) and Thomas Hind (CERN)
Diagram showing principle of compact Free Electron Laser based on Laser Wakefield Accelerator.
Image credit: Victor Malka (CNRS-ENSTA-Ecole Polytechnique)
ERC grants are currently being used to support development of alternative accelerator technologies.
The X-Five project, funded by an ERC Grant, is aiming to produce compact, tuneable and ultra bright X ray beams. This is possible thanks to the tremendous progress on manipulating the collective electron motion in plasma mediums, which makes laser plasma accelerators a technology option for new approaches.
X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFEL) provide intense coherent femtosecond pulses for multidisciplinary investigations of matter. In parallel, electron beams generated from laser plasma acceleration offer a few femtosecond short bunches with high peak currents. The COXINEL ERC Advanced Grant aims to handle the present energy spread (~1 %) and divergence (mrad) of plasma-generated beams by a proper longitudinal and transverse manipulation in the beam transport to the undulator. It should then be possible to demonstrate FEL amplification, as a qualification of these novel beams.
The goal of the AXSIS grant is to trace and understand chemical and biological processes which take place in just quintillionths of a second, with full atomic detail. The project involves the establishing of a new facility, which will be based at DESY. The attosecond source will be based on a novel, laser-driven particle accelerator technology, which will emit X-ray radiation with much shorter pulses than is possible today. This technology can revolutionise the understanding of structure and function at the atomic level and unravel fundamental processes in chemistry and biology.
