The development of laser- and beam-driven plasma accelerators as an experimental field

Since its inception in the early 1980s, the field of plasma-based particle accelerators has made remarkable advances. Robust plasma accelerating structures can now be excited over centimeter scales using short laser pulses and over meter scales using ultrarelativistic particle beams. Accelerating fields in excess of tens of GV/m can be sustained over these lengths. Laser-driven plasma accelerators now routinely produce monoenergetic, low divergence electron beams in the 100 MeV–1 GeV range, whereas electron-beam driven plasma accelerators have demonstrated the ability to double the energy of 42 GeV electrons using a high-energy collider beam in less than one meter. The development of this field is traced through a series of path breaking experiments. © 2007 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2721965