Although modern particle accelerators tend to be fairly big - enough to take up entire rooms - researchers at the University of Maryland have found a way to create smaller sized units that are portable, according to Engadget. The team found a new method of accelerating electrons at a speed close to the speed of light, without using as much energy, by shooting plasma with a laser pulse; the findings were published in Physical Review Letters.
"This is the energy consumed by a typical household lightbulb in one-thousandth of a second," said Howard Milchberg, lead author of the study. "Because the laser energy requirement is so low, our result opens the way for laser-driven particle accelerators that can be moved around on a cart."
Portable particle accelerators offer plenty of potential benefits over larger applications - they could be used for efficient medical imaging that could be conducted in patients' rooms as well as be used for on-the-spot scientific imaging, according to Silicon Republic.
"Our results enable truly portable applications of laser-driven acceleration, such as low dose radiography, ultrafast probing of matter, and isotope production," the researchers wrote.
Despite the benefits apparent for portable medical uses, further research needs to be conducted before laser-driven particle accelerators will be able to be effectively used in high-energy physics applications, according to ECN Magazine.
