The enormous size and cost of current state-of-the-art accelerators based on conventional radio-frequency technology has spawned great interest in the development of new acceleration concepts that are more compact and economical. Micro-fabricated dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) are an attractive approach, because such dielectric microstructures can support accelerating fields one to two orders of magnitude higher than can radio-frequency cavity-based accelerators. DLAs use commercial lasers as a power source, which are smaller and less expensive than the radio-frequency klystrons that power today's accelerators. In addition, DLAs are fabricated via low-cost, lithographic techniques that can be used for mass production. However, despite several DLA structures having been proposed recently, no successful demonstration of acceleration in these structures has so far been shown. Here we report high-gradient (beyond 250 MeV m(-1)) acceleration of electrons in a DLA. Relativistic (60-MeV) electrons are energy-modulated over 563 ± 104 optical periods of a fused silica grating structure, powered by a 800-nm-wavelength mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. The observed results are in agreement with analytical models and electrodynamic simulations. By comparison, conventional modern linear accelerators operate at gradients of 10-30 MeV m(-1), and the first linear radio-frequency cavity accelerator was ten radio-frequency periods (one metre) long with a gradient of approximately 1.6 MeV m(-1) (ref. 5). Our results set the stage for the development of future multi-staged DLA devices composed of integrated on-chip systems. This would enable compact table-top accelerators on the MeV-GeV (10(6)-10(9) eV) scale for security scanners and medical therapy, university-scale X-ray light sources for biological and materials research, and portable medical imaging devices, and would substantially reduce the size and cost of a future collider on the multi-TeV (10(12) eV) scale.

The use of infrared lasers to power optical-scale lithographically fabricated particle accelerators is a developing area of research that has garnered increasing interest in recent years. We review the physics and technology of this approach, which we refer to as dielectric laser acceleration (DLA). In the DLA scheme operating at typical laser pulse lengths of 0.1 to 1 ps, the laser damage fluences for robust dielectric materials correspond to peak surface electric fields in the GV/m regime. The corresponding accelerating field enhancement represents a potential reduction in active length of the accelerator between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude. Power sources for DLA-based accelerators (lasers) are less costly than microwave sources (klystrons) for equivalent average power levels due to wider availability and private sector investment. Due to the high laser-to-particle coupling efficiency, required pulse energies are consistent with tabletop microJoule class lasers. Combined with the very high (MHz) repetition rates these lasers can provide, the DLA approach appears promising for a variety of applications, including future high energy physics colliders, compact light sources, and portable medical scanners and radiative therapy machines.

We demonstrate a new particle acceleration mechanism using 800 nm laser radiation to accelerate relativistic electrons in a semi-infinite vacuum. The experimental demonstration is the first of its kind and is a proof of principle for the concept of laser-driven particle acceleration in a structure loaded vacuum. We observed up to 30 keV energy modulation over a distance of 1000 lambda, corresponding to a 40 MeV/m peak gradient. The energy modulation was observed to scale linearly with the laser electric field and showed the expected laser-polarization dependence. Furthermore, as expected, laser acceleration occurred only in the presence of a boundary that limited the laser-electron interaction to a finite distance.

Acceleration of electrons using laser-driven dielectric microstructures is a promising technology for the miniaturization of particle accelerators. Achieving the desired GV m^-1 accelerating gradients is possible only with laser pulse durations shorter than ∼1  ps. In this Letter, we present, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstration of acceleration of relativistic electrons at a dielectric microstructure driven by femtosecond duration laser pulses. Using this technique, an electron accelerating gradient of 690±100  MV m^-1 was measured-a record for dielectric laser accelerators.