Speaker
Description
Over the past decade, laser systems capable of delivering extremely high power at high repetition rates have been developed. These developments now enable acceleration of charged particles to near-light speeds in a very compact plasma channel – a few centimetres as opposed to kilometres required in a conventional accelerator. This technology is now considered "mature enough" for driving super-bright energetic radiation and particle sources for applications cutting across a multitude of areas in society; facilities are being designed and constructed based on this technology. I will talk about a new facility coming up in the UK based on this – the Extreme Photonics Applications Centre (EPAC). EPAC will host a Petawatt laser running at 10Hz, driving plasma accelerators producing high-energy particle and x-ray beams for fundamental science and applications in a multitude of areas – from industry, biology & medicine to security and defence. We will give an overview of the facility, describing the latest developments and future directions of EPAC.
