Could a particle accelerator using laser-driven implosion become a reality?

Laser pulse compression technology invented in the late 1980s developed high-power short-pulse laser techniques, enhancing laser intensity 10-million-fold in a quarter of a century.

Scientists at Osaka University discovered a novel particle acceleration mechanism called “Micro-bubble implosion,” in which super-high energy hydrogen ions (relativistic protons) are emitted at the moment when bubbles shrink to atomic size through the irradiation of hydrides with micron-sized spherical bubbles by ultraintense laser pulses. Their research results were published in Scientific Reports.

The group led by Masakatsu Murakami has reported an astonishing physical phenomenon: when shrinking matter to the unprecedented high level, with density comparable to matter the size of a sugar cube weighing more than 100 kg, high-energy protons are emitted from the positively-charged nanoscale clusters, a world first. Usually, an acceleration distance of several tens to hundreds of meters is necessary for conventional accelerators to generate such huge energy.