Demonstration of sub-luminal propagation of single-cycle terahertz pulses for particle acceleration

THz acceleration NatCommswebpictureThe demonstration of the slowing of single-cycle terahertz frequency (1012Hz) electromagnetic pulses to subluminal speeds has been published in Nature Communications.

The work proves a new concept for velocity matching ultrashort, sub-picosecond, electromagnetic pulses with relativistic particle beams, opening up novel approaches for manipulating and accelerating femtosecond duration particle beams.

The ASTeC and Manchester University team involved, together with colleagues at Lancaster University, are now working to implement these concepts in experiments accelerating relativistic electron beams.

 

 

 

The Nature Communications article is open access and can be found at
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00490-y

Further information on research in THz driven acceleration is available on the ASTeC laser and optics group page.