Accelerating neutral atoms on a table top

Conventional, as well as compact, laser-based particle acceleration schemes hinge on accelerating electric fields and are therefore ineffective for neutral atoms, which do not respond to these fields. Researchers at UPHILL lab at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (India) have generated a table-top mega-electron-volt neutral atom source. The technique involves the stripping of eight electrons per Argon atom in a cluster, accelerate the ions and subsequently put back the electrons into the ions with 100 percent conversion efficiency.

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