Designed by the Argonne group, this device may find applications after further research and development in future high energy physics accelerators. These accelerators are usually powered by klystrons - a kind of vacuum tube that generates microwaves to accelerate particles much as ocean waves accelerate surfboards. But for economic and technical reasons, klystron technology cannot be scaled up to power the ultrahigh energy particle accelerators required for particle physics research in the 21st century. In this new kind of accelerator, the acceleration mechanism can be compared to that of the familiar electric power transformer. In this new device, electrons flow through vacuum rather than wire as in a traditional transformer.
Lasers create the high-current electron beam.
When used with the beam transformer technique, the pulse train will simultaneously give a longer accelerating distance and higher power. Argonne concentrating on a beam transformer technique, the dielectric wakefield transformer, which is perhaps the simplest and the closest to existing accelerator techniques. This energy is fed to a second dielectric tube where the fields are stepped up, much like the fields in the familiar electric power transformer. A second beam is accelerated to high energies in the second tube. This type of accelerating structure is easy to make and provides high accelerating fields.