Physicists from the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics
produced electron pulses from a laser accelerator whose individual particles
all have nearly the same, tuneable energy.
Electrons with a velocity close to the speed of light are
hard to control. Using them as a tool for applications at the frontier of
ultrafast physics requires them to be packed into extremely short pulses with
tunable energy. A team around Laboratory for Attosecond Physics (LAP) group
leaders Dr. Laszlo Veisz and Prof. Stefan Karsch, both based at the
Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) has now achieved that feat by
using a laser-driven accelerator. They created electron pulses with
few-femtosecond duration, whose many individual particles all have nearly the
same, but widely tunable energy.