News|Laser-Plasma Acceleration on the Road to Real-World Applications: Achieving New Levels of Beam Stability
Laser-Plasma Acceleration on the Road to Real-World Applications: Achieving New Levels of Beam Stability
Hamburg / Germany06/05/2025

Laser-plasma acceleration is considered a key technology for the next generation of compact particle accelerators—with promising prospects for applications in research, industry, and medical technology. A major breakthrough has now been achieved at the DESY experiment LUX, bringing this vision significantly closer to reality.
An interdisciplinary research team has succeeded in decisively improving the quality of electron bunches from a laser-plasma accelerator. This was made possible by a two-stage correction system: a magnetic chicane combined with a high-frequency resonator enabled precise optimization of the electrons’ energy distribution. The result: electron beams with a level of stability previously only attainable with conventional high-frequency technology.
These groundbreaking results were published in the journal Nature and represent a significant step toward practical applications. They demonstrate that laser-plasma acceleration is not just an exciting field of research—it is evolving into a reliable and controllable technology.
This success also benefits the Hi-Acts Technology Lab “Compact Laser Plasma Accelerator.” The lab is also part of the DESY working group Plasma Acceleration & Lasers and aims to make innovative accelerator solutions accessible for real-world applications.
Discover more within the NATURE-Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08772-y#citeas
Active energy compression of a laser-plasma electron beam, P. Winkler, M. Trunk, L. Hübner, A. Martinez de la Ossa, S. Jalas, M. Kirchen, I. Agapov, S. A. Antipov, R. Brinkmann, T. Eichner, A. Ferran Pousa, T. Hülsenbusch, G. Palmer, M. Schnepp, K. Schubert, M. Thévenet, P. A. Walker, C. Werle, W. P. Leemans, A. R. Maier, „Nature“, 2025, DOI:10.1038/s41586-025-08772-y