Berkeley lab builds world record tabletop-size particle accelerator

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Taking careful aim with a quadrillion watt laser, researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab claim to have managed to speed up subatomic particles to the highest energies ever recorded for a compact accelerator. By blasting hot plasma into their tabletop-size laser-plasma accelerator, the scientists assert that they have produced acceleration energy of around of 4.25 giga-electron volts. Acceleration of this magnitude over the short distances involved correlates to an energy rise 1,000 times greater than that of a traditional – and very much larger – particle accelerator... Continue Reading Berkeley lab builds world record tabletop-size particle accelerator



Section: Science



Tags: Laser, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Particle accelerator, Physics, Plasma



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via http://www.gizmag.com/