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Plasma Wakefield Acceleration
The project is an upgrade to the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests (FACET), a DOE Office of Science user facility that operated from 2011 to 2016. Researchers will use FACET-II to develop the plasma wakefield acceleration method, in which researchers send a bunch of very energetic particles through a hot ionized gas, or plasma, creating a plasma wake for a trailing bunch to “surf” on and gain energy. (Conceptual art by Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
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Recently upgraded and reopened to scientific users, FACET-II is the only facility in the world that provides high-energy electron beams for researching a vast array of revolutionary particle accelerator technologies that could make future accelerators 100 to 1,000 times smaller and a lot more capable.
With electron beams a hundred times more intense than anything that came before, FACET-II creates entirely new scientific opportunities, from designing and improving X-ray lasers and other light sources to opening new avenues in high energy physics and materials, biological and energy science.
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