An electron beam has been accelerated for the first time using a process that mimics the way lasers amplify light. The technique could lead to a new type of particle accelerator.
In a laser, a lamp excites atoms or molecules in a chamber to a higher energy state. When light with just the right frequency enters the chamber it prompts many of these particles to drop to a lower energy level, releasing their energy as an intense beam of light.
Now a research group from the Technion 鈥� Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, including, Levi Sch盲chter, Samer Banna and Valery Berezovksy, has used a similar idea to build a 鈥減aser鈥� (particle acceleration by stimulated emission of radiation) and test it at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. 鈥淚n the paser, we inject an electron beam into a chamber of excited carbon dioxide molecules, instead of light,鈥� explains Banna.
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The injected electron beam is separated into bunches and sent into the chamber at the precise frequency required to make the excited carbon dioxide molecules release their energy. The passing electrons absorbed it and speeded up, boosting their energy by 0.15 per cent. The work will appear in Physical Review Letters.
鈥淭his is the first time that energy stored within molecules has been used to accelerate particles,鈥� says Sch盲chter who predicted the concept theoretically back in 1995. The team is now working on achieving larger accelerations and they hope that this technology will be used to develop a new generation of compact accelerators that may become a commonplace tool utilized in widespread applications.
