Experimental Medical Physics
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Applications

The claim that laser-driven ion beams bare high potential for applications, eventually even for a cost-effective therapy, is commonly based on the fact that the field structures in which the ions are accelerated have considerably smaller dimensions as compared to conventional accelerators. This may promise more compact and therefore less expensive accelerators in the future.

But the microscopic dimensions over which electrons and ions are rapidly accelerated by the gigantic fields that are set up by the laser offer even more. A typical PW-class laser pulse can, for example, accelerate ions from a micrometre small source to 10-30% of the speed of light within less than 100 femtoseconds. It is this accurate definition in space and time, typically referred to as (ultra)small emittance, which can enable experiments with sub-ps temporal and micrometer spatial resolution.

More strikingly, ion bunches can be accelerated by the same laser pulses as electron bunches, simply by adjusting focusing and target conditions. This synchronism can be exploited further, ions can be converted into neutrons, relativistic electron pulses are excellent sources of X-UV, X-ray or even Gamma-ray bursts, all with durations of a few femtoseconds or even sub-fs, and all synchronised to within the same time scales. This quality is indeed unique and eventually not even achievable by means other than high power lasers. We aim to develop methodologies to a maturity that allows harvesting those opportunities and demonstrating first applications with pulsed, laser-driven ion sources.

  • Nanosecond Ion Irradiation of Tumor Cells

    Cells

    The chief advantage of ion therapy is the ability to reduce the toxicity associated with its use owing to the advantageous energy deposition properties as compared to the common x-ray or gamma ray therapy. It has been world-widely established with several clinical facilities via the mature conventional technology. However, the number of those clinical facilities is limited owing to the high cost and huge size of the conventional accelerators such as cyclotrons, synchrotrons or linacs. more

  • Light Bursts out of a Flying Mirror

    Flying Mirror

    A dense sheet of electrons accelerated to close to the speed of light can act as a tuneable mirror that can generate bursts of laser-like radiation in the short wavelength range via reflection. A team of physicists from the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München, the Queens University Belfast (QUB) and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) near Oxford created such a mirror in a recent experiment. (Picture: Thorsten Naeser) more

  • Experiments with Pulsed Ions

    Laser driven ion bunches come with many unique characteristics, such as short bunch duration (∼ps), low emittance, high flux and high energy, making them suitable for a number of groundbreaking applications. more