#wave field

A team of researchers at DESY has reached an important milestone on the road to the particle accelerator of the future. For the first time, a so-called laser plasma accelerator has run for more than a day while continuously producing electron beams. The LUX beamline, jointly developed and operated by DESY and the University of Hamburg, achieved a run time of 30 hours. "This brings us a big step closer to the steady operation of this innovative particle accelerator technology," says DESY's Andreas R. Maier, the leader of the group. The scientists are reporting on their record in the journal Physical Review X. "The time is ripe to move laser plasma acceleration from the laboratory to practical applications," adds the director of DESY's Accelerator Division, Wim Leemans.