Summary
High-quality electron beams are required for advanced light sources and for high energy physics. Engines of discovery such as free-electron-lasers (FELs) and other bright light sources, are driven by electron beams today produced in km-long state-of-the-art linear accelerators (linacs). A complementary alternative are cm-scale plasma-based accelerators, which are feasible in university-lab scale environments. The NeXource project aims at combining key advantages of both types of accelerators to realize hybrid plasma-based accelerators orders of magnitude smaller and at the same time with electron beam quality orders of magnitude better than state-of-the-art. This has far-reaching impact as it will enable the construction of table-top coherent hard x-ray sources with extreme brightness.
This project is motivated by experimental breakthroughs obtained in the E210 collaboration at the linac-driven plasma accelerator facility FACET at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and by the progress at laser-plasma-accelerator facilities, combined with novel conceptual approaches towards beams with unprecedented 6D-brightness by using tailored beamloading in plasma-based photocathodes.
A dedicated setup for plasma photocathode prototyping and hybrid plasma acceleration will be established at the Scottish Centre for the Application of Plasma-based Accelerators (SCAPA) to develop beam brightness transformers. This R&D will be complemented by campaigns at SLAC, DESY, Daresbury Laboratory and laser-plasma-accelerator labs in Europe. Start-to-end simulations indicate that hard x-ray FEL’s with ultrahigh gain and other advanced light sources can be realised with such electron beams in university-scale labs, which would have transformative impact on photon science and a wide range of natural, life and material science.
This project is motivated by experimental breakthroughs obtained in the E210 collaboration at the linac-driven plasma accelerator facility FACET at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and by the progress at laser-plasma-accelerator facilities, combined with novel conceptual approaches towards beams with unprecedented 6D-brightness by using tailored beamloading in plasma-based photocathodes.
A dedicated setup for plasma photocathode prototyping and hybrid plasma acceleration will be established at the Scottish Centre for the Application of Plasma-based Accelerators (SCAPA) to develop beam brightness transformers. This R&D will be complemented by campaigns at SLAC, DESY, Daresbury Laboratory and laser-plasma-accelerator labs in Europe. Start-to-end simulations indicate that hard x-ray FEL’s with ultrahigh gain and other advanced light sources can be realised with such electron beams in university-scale labs, which would have transformative impact on photon science and a wide range of natural, life and material science.
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| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/865877 |
| Start date: | 01-04-2020 |
| End date: | 30-09-2025 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | 2 059 493,00 Euro - 2 059 493,00 Euro |
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Original description
High-quality electron beams are required for advanced light sources and for high energy physics. Engines of discovery such as free-electron-lasers (FELs) and other bright light sources, are driven by electron beams today produced in km-long state-of-the-art linear accelerators (linacs). A complementary alternative are cm-scale plasma-based accelerators, which are feasible in university-lab scale environments. The NeXource project aims at combining key advantages of both types of accelerators to realize hybrid plasma-based accelerators orders of magnitude smaller and at the same time with electron beam quality orders of magnitude better than state-of-the-art. This has far-reaching impact as it will enable the construction of table-top coherent hard x-ray sources with extreme brightness.This project is motivated by experimental breakthroughs obtained in the E210 collaboration at the linac-driven plasma accelerator facility FACET at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and by the progress at laser-plasma-accelerator facilities, combined with novel conceptual approaches towards beams with unprecedented 6D-brightness by using tailored beamloading in plasma-based photocathodes.
A dedicated setup for plasma photocathode prototyping and hybrid plasma acceleration will be established at the Scottish Centre for the Application of Plasma-based Accelerators (SCAPA) to develop beam brightness transformers. This R&D will be complemented by campaigns at SLAC, DESY, Daresbury Laboratory and laser-plasma-accelerator labs in Europe. Start-to-end simulations indicate that hard x-ray FEL’s with ultrahigh gain and other advanced light sources can be realised with such electron beams in university-scale labs, which would have transformative impact on photon science and a wide range of natural, life and material science.
Status
SIGNEDCall topic
ERC-2019-COGUpdate Date
27-04-2024
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EU-Programme-Call
Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
ERC-2019
ERC-2019-COG
