Particle acceleration with lasers

Lasers have been considered for charged particle acceleration because of their high peak power and because intense field strengths can be obtained far from material surfaces. Several different mechanisms for transferring energy from a light beam to an electron beam are discussed. l accelerator structure, consisting of an open wave guide, is described. Desirable features of this design are that the interaction is in vacuum, particle motion is linear, acceleration gradient is high, there is high-energy transfer per stage, and the structure is simple with dimensions that are orders of magnitude larger than the laser wavelength. An energy increment of 1.6 GeV can be obtained in a distance of 1.6 m with a 25 TW laser.