Laser-driven particle accelerators utilise the strong electric fields generated by an intense laser pulse propagating in an undersense plasma to accelerate electrons to MeV-GeV energies in mm-cm distances. The bunch length of laser-produced electron beams is very short, of the order of 1 fs, therefore radiation sources driven by laser-plasma accelerators have also inherently short durations and are characterised by a high brilliance and small source size.
The Advanced Laser-Plasma High-Energy Accelerators towards X-rays (ALPHA-X) programme is developing laser-plasma accelerators for a wide range of applications, including coherent radiation production, x-ray phase contrast imaging, radiobiology and radioisotope production. The Alpha-X beam line is now located at the Scottish Centre for the Application of Plasma-based Accelerators (SCAPA), which has been recently built at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow to focus on the development and application of next generation accelerator technology. SCAPA contains 3 shielded areas for a total of 7 accelerator beam lines driven by two Ti:sapphire laser systems: an entirely new 350 TW laser system that produces 8.75 J, 25 fs pulses at a repetition rate of 5 Hz, and a 40 TW laser system that produces 1.4 J, 35 fs pulses at a repetition rate of 10 Hz.
Contact V. Schlott, 4237
