News

The Shoulders-Gray-Spindt (SGS) Prize is awarded in the name of the founders of the International Vacuum Nanoelectronics Conference (IVNC) to promote young scientists in the field of vacuum nanoelectronics. We are delighted that Leon Brückner has received the endowed prize for a publication on “Cohe...

Dielectric laser accelerators have so far been operated with lasers in the near-infrared range. Using a longer wavelength should allow higher electron transmission and a higher damage threshold. In a cooperation with the university and the Fraunhofer Institute in Jena, we are demonstrating accelerat...

Our postdoc Zhexin Zhao received a highly prestigous Humboldt Research Scholarship to continue her work as a postdoc here with us -- warmest congratulations! Well deserved.

CERN Courier published an article covering the history of on-chip accelerators using silicon-based structures illuminated by lasers. These dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) promise powerful, high-energy, high-repetition-rate particle sources suitable for applications in medical facilities and qua...

With the help of a delay-line detector and microstructured electrode layouts, a resonator for electrons is realized for the first time in which up to 7 orbits could be detected. In addition to a beam splitter and a beam guide, such an electron-optical element is essential for enabling efficient inte...

We demonstrate that electrons inside a crystal driven by ultrashort and intense laser pulses act as an extremely precise ruler for the crystal’s electronic structure. When subjected to the optical field of the laser pulses, the electrons navigate through the crystal on a timescale of a single femtos...

The article explores the fascinating world of high-energy physics and the role of innovative accelerator concepts. Within the framework of the I.FAST project, this also involved the generation of fast single electrons at gigahertz repetition rates for the search for dark matter using dielectric lase...

Delay line detectors have the advantage of being able to detect the position and time of particle events with high precision while also being multi-hit capable. Our article presents a novel machine learning approach to enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of delay line detectors for multi-event re...

Particle accelerators are indispensable for research, medicine and industry. We have developed a miniature particle accelerator that accelerates and guides electrons through nanostructures using laser light. In an interview in Welt der Physik (German), Prof. Dr. Hommelhoff and Stefanie Kraus repo...

Needle tips are known to be the electron source with the highest beam quality. However, due to their small size, the emitted current is limited. Combining the emission of multiple tips should allow for high currents while still providing appreciable beam quality. We have fabricated and measured an a...

How do the electron number statistics behave when classical light and non-classical light are used to trigger non-linear photoemission from nanometer-sized metal tips? We discuss this question in our recently published manuscript in Nature Physics, which can be read here. For more details see als...

The ACHIP research program, generously supported by the Californian Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation with around 20 million euros, has come to an end. ACHIP stands for "Accelerator on a Chip International Program". It has funded research into this type of laser-based accelerator and allowed us to m...