Moore’s Law for Lawrence’s Device: Shrinking the Particle Accelerator

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Speaker(s): Franklin Dollar

As Moore’s law continues to push forward semiconductor devices, we are now seeing commercial devices with feature sizes below 5 nanometers. Through the use of high power, short pulse lasers, a technology which warranted the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, an analogous revolution is set to occur in particle accelerators. These new laser driven accelerators can achieve efficient acceleration of particles and generate bright x-rays with a potential to shrink the size and cost of the device, opening new applications which were not practical before. We will discuss the science behind using light to accelerate particles, and some of the applications now possible.

Colloquium

Junior and senior physics majors attend our biweekly colloquium series, held on Tuesday afternoons at 4:30 p.m. in Shanahan B460. The talks are open to all students and to the public, and are frequently attended by scientists from the other Claremont Colleges, Cal Poly Pomona, and others. The series features speakers from a broad range of institutions and fields of physics.