Acceleration of particles in photonic structures fabricated using semiconductor manufacturing techniques and driven by ultrafast solid state lasers is a new and promising approach to developing future generations of compact particle accelerators. Substantial progress has been made in this area in recent years, fueled by a growing international collaboration of universities, national laboratories, and companies. Performance of these micro-accelerator devices is ultimately limited by laser-induced material breakdown limits, which can be substantially higher for optically driven dielectrics than for radio-frequency metallic cavities traditionally used in modern particle accelerators, allowing for 1 to 2 order of magnitude increase in achievable accelerating fields. The lasers required for this approach are commercially available with moderate (microJoule class) pulse energies and repetition rates in the MHz regime. We summarize progress to date and outline potential near-term applications and offshoot technologies.
Proceedings of the 13th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2022, Bangkok, Thailand