Published: Oct. 29, 2020

The $1.15M award is a four-year renewal of the previous $1.1M award that Professor Litos and his research group has received along with co-PI Professor John Cary from the Department of Energy. The award is targeted at research frontiers and crosscutting research areas that enable new scientific opportunities by developing the necessary tools and methods for discoveries.

In the previous round of funding, many milestones were reached by the research team led by Professor Litos. These include:

  1. Design of laser-ionized plasma source for PWFA
  2. Design of laser-ionized, passive thin plasma lens for electron beams
  3. Design of ultrafast optical electron beam diagnostics
  4. Design of robust optical plasma source diagnostics
  5. Theoretical advancement of transverse beam dynamics in plasma ramps
  6. Fast particle tracking code for plasma wakefield accelerators
  7. Laser-ionization and propagation simulation code
  8. Coordination and planning as PI for multiple upcoming experiments at SLAC
  9. Training and education

These milestones established a solid experimental foundation for coming long-term experiments at SLAC鈥檚 FACET-II advanced accelerator research facility.

In this renewal phase, Professor Litos research group hopes to accomplish their specific research goal in FACET-II, the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests II. The research title is 鈥淓mittance Preservation in a Plasma Wakefield Accelerator, Hard Focusing with a Thin Plasma Lens, and Demonstration of an Ion Channel Laser.鈥澨�

鈥淎 key research milestone is emittance preservation in a plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA), which requires that the electron beam be focused to an extremely small size (of order one micron) at the entrance to the PWFA plasma source鈥�, Professor Litos said.

Professor Litos also said: 鈥渢o accomplish this task, we have developed a new plasma source that incorporates tailored plasma density ramps at the entrance and exit of the PWFA in order to focus the incoming beam to the appropriate, matched size and then control the beam鈥檚 divergence as it exits the PWFA.鈥�

This research area also provides graduate research training for the next generation of scientists, and equipment and computational support for physics research activities.