Scientists have activated the smallest particle accelerator ever built—a tiny device roughly the size of a coin.
Scientists have activated the smallest particle accelerator ever built—a tiny device roughly the size of a coin. This advancement opens new doors for particle acceleration, promising exciting possibilities for medicine, physics, and other scientific fields. It brings researchers closer than ever to portable, cost-effective accelerators.
Most particle accelerators today use large metal structures and radio-frequency waves to push particles forward. This traditional setup limits the size and increases the expense of building these machines. Current designs struggle with radio-frequency fields that only allow modest acceleration gradients, measured in megavolts per meter.
Researchers have now turned to dielectric materials, which handle much stronger optical fields. Unlike metal-based systems, these materials can sustain electric fields surpassing 10 gigavolts per meter. This capability means dielectric setups achieve significantly higher acceleration rates in dramatically smaller spaces.
At the heart of this new technology is the dielectric laser accelerator (DLA). It uses precisely designed nanophotonic structures to align laser-generated optical fields with moving charged particles. This synchronization creates acceleration rates up to 100 times greater than traditional systems, drastically shrinking the size and lowering the costs.
This new nanophotonic device measures just 500 micrometers—barely visible to the naked eye. To put it in perspective, it’s about 54 million times smaller than the massive accelerators currently used in particle physics experiments.
A key challenge in any accelerator is maintaining particle confinement to prevent energy loss. In the DLA, confinement occurs within a narrow, nanometer-wide channel, structured to keep electrons focused as they gain energy.
To overcome the focusing limitations posed by Earnshaw’s theorem, researchers employed an alternating phase focusing (APF) technique. This method alternates between focusing and defocusing forces to guide the electrons along their trajectory, ensuring consistent acceleration.
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