The plasma accelerator project FLASHForward achieved an important milestone in January 2017.
For the first time, the facility’s high-power laser accelerated electron bunches in a plasma cell. Later in the operational phase, the laser will control the formation of the plasma at FLASH. The group of scientists around DESY’s Jens Osterhoff used the laser to ignite a plasma, from which electrons were accelerated to energies of around 100 mega-electronvolts within a distance of just a few millimetres. This allows important pre-experiments for the planned beam-driven plasma experiment. As of the second half of this year, the FLASHForward scientists want to use the FLASH electron beam to generate a plasma in a plasma cell in order to further accelerate other electron bunches from the FLASH particle accelerator or electron bunches which are formed in the plasma itself.
“The electron bunches that have now been accelerated by the laser in the plasma cell have in many respects very similar properties to those that we are later hoping to accelerate with the FLASH beam in FLASHForward,” explains the project leader Jens Osterhoff.
Picture: The FLASHForward scientists accelerated the first electron bunches in such a plasma cell (photo: DESY/ H. Müller-Elsner).