Plasma Waves caught on camera
OCT 31, 2006
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.020569
Azom.com : Plasma physicists at the Universities of Texas and Michigan have photographed speedy plasma waves, known as Langmuir waves, for the first time, using a specially designed holographic-strobe camera. The waves are the fastest matter waves ever photographed, clocking in at about 99.997% of the speed of light. The waves are generated in the wake of an ultra-intense laser pulse, and give rise to enormous electric fields, reaching voltages higher than 100 billion electron volts/meter (GeV/m). The waves’ electric fields can be used to accelerate electrons so strongly that they may lead to ultra-compact, tabletop versions of a high-energy particle accelerators that could be a thousand times smaller that devices which currently exists only in large-scale facilities, which are typically miles long.
© 2006 American Institute of Physics
