Awarded R&D Activities

High-Efficiency, High-Power, Ultrafast Lasers
“Ultrafast” lasers—lasers producing pulses shorter than 1 picosecond—are widely used in scientific research as probes for chemistry, material science, and biology, and are also used to generate, accelerate, and control particle beams. Raising the pulse rate of such lasers a thousand times will greatly increase the science that can be accomplished.

Princeton University, Stanford University, the University of Rochester, and Axiom Optics, Inc. are partnering to advance plasma-based optical technology for improving high-energy ultrashort-pulsed laser beams. This effort focuses on enhancing pulse contrast, beam quality, and incorporating advanced spatial and temporal shaping for applications in laser-driven particle acceleration. Award Abstract

Ohio State University, Princeton University, and Vescent Photonics are collaborating on the development of a compact, waveform-controlled laser front-end operating at an infrared central wavelength of 2 microns. The platform combines the turnkey stability and control provided by a fiber-based frequency comb with gain-shaped amplification in a holmium-doped solid-state pre-amplifier to realize an efficient and stable front-end for future sources of ultrafast x-rays and next-generation laser-plasma particle accelerators. Award Abstract

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is partnering with BAE Systems to develop high peak and average power energetic laser drivers for compact accelerators. Utilizing advances in laser technology and nonlinear crystal growth and building upon previous work, novel ultrashort pulse duration mid-infrared (MWIR), and longwave infrared (LWIR) drivers will be developed with unprecedented peak powers.

Compact Accelerators for Security and Medicine
R&D in this topic is aimed at cost-effective, robust, automated, near-term compact sources of particles and radiation that enable new capabilities in security and medicine.

Long-Term Accelerator R&D with Broad Applications
Awards in this category fund long-term accelerator R&D of broad benefit to many applications, for efforts aimed at a significant increase in accelerator performance and/or decrease in cost.

Facilitated Use of Office of Science Accelerator R&D Capabilities
One award was made under the Accelerator Stewardship Test Facility Program to facilitate access to the unique accelerator research capabilities of the Office of Science National Laboratories. Awards are for up to $300k and up to one year in duration.

Accelerator Technology Partnerships
An award was made to a public-private partnerships that enhances domestic production capability in a key accelerator technology needed for SC accelerator facilities and applications in medicine, clean energy, environmental cleanup, security, and industry.

Accelerator Technology for Cancer Therapy
Awards in this area are for translational R&D to adapt accelerator technologies used for discovery science to provide faster, better, and less expensive patient treatments with proton and carbon ion beams.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Varian Medical Systems are collaborating to test a high-temperature superconducting magnet for proton therapy. This technology promises light-weight, cost-effective gantries, with the potential for faster treatment modalities.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, University of California San Francisco, and Loma Linda University Medical Center are developing a compact proton radiation therapy system capable of high dose rate 3D scanning over a tumor volume using RF accelerator technology designed for rapid beam energy changes and transverse steering. Prototype testing in collaboration with Mevion Medical Systems will demonstrate the feasibility of efficient RF capture and precision dose scanning over a clinically relevant field.

High-Efficiency, High-Power, Ultrafast Lasers
“Ultrafast” lasers—lasers producing pulses shorter than 1 picosecond—are widely used in scientific research as probes for chemistry, material science, and biology, and are also used to generate, accelerate, and control particle beams. Raising the pulse rate of such lasers a thousand times will greatly increase the science that can be accomplished.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Michigan, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are developing coherent combination of fiber lasers to realize highly efficient ultrashort pulse lasers with an unprecedented combination of high repetition rate and energy. With key enabling concepts of a fiber system (blue boxes) recently demonstrated, development is focusing on techniques (green) to make possible the required multi-Joule energies with very low levels of undesired precursor pulses (sources -orange), as is needed for compact laser-plasma particle accelerators and other societally important applications. 

High-Efficiency High Power Electron Accelerator Technology
Technologies capable of providing megawatt-class electron beams for industrial use are rare and expensive. Research in this topic area aims to significantly increase the power and reduce the cost of very high-power electron accelerator technology.

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, General Atomics, C. F. Roark, RadiaBeam, TJS Technologies, JW Rathke Engineering Services, and Hampton Roads Sanitation District are working to develop a compact, conduction-cooled, efficient superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) cryomodule for industrial accelerators. The system being developed consists of a 2-cell SRF cavity powered by a commercial magnetron through a low-loss power coupler and cooled by commercial cryocoolers. 

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, General Atomics, and InnoSys will develop a magnetron radiofrequency (RF) system scalable to 1 MW power deliverable to particle accelerators with a goal of greater than 80% wall-plug to RF power efficiency and less than $1.50/W capital cost. Using state-of-the-art technology and algorithms for magnetron amplitude and phase controls, system performance applicable to industrial electron accelerators is achievable at the end of the three-year program.

Compact Accelerators for Security and Medicine
R&D in this topic is aimed at cost-effective, robust, automated, near-term compact sources of particles and radiation that enable new capabilities in security and medicine.

Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are developing robust adaptive and physics-constrained generative machine- learning-driven diagnostics and controls for compact accelerators with a focus on ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) for mesoscale material science dynamics. The goal is to develop algorithms that autonomously run compact accelerators and automatically adjust to drift, capabilities which are of great importance for space-based and medical accelerators.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will evaluate the trade-space of X-ray light source designs and performance for 3-dimensional characterization of microelectronics. This report will develop preliminary concepts for “dedicated” machines, taking into account properties such as size, X-ray beam properties, and complexity to operate.

Long-Term Accelerator R&D with Broad Applications

Awards in this category fund long-term accelerator R&D of broad benefit to many applications, for efforts aimed at a significant increase in accelerator performance and/or decrease in cost.

Michigan State University will develop a new analyzing tool for the intricate nonlinear dynamics of particle accelerators using the diffeomorphism to rigid rotation. This work helps to understand charged particles’ long-term behavior in ring accelerators and the physics of the nonlinear resonances, which are essential in the parameter optimization for future high performance circular accelerators.

Universities of California at Santa Cruz and Davis; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are partnering to develop a position-sensitive ionizing-particle detection system capable of providing measurements at 5-10 GHz, for applications in accelerator and plasma physics and photon science. The accompanying photograph shows the detection system that will be upgraded to high speed, making use of a 2x2 mm square artificial diamond sensor that will be read out by an 10 GHz integrated-circuit chip also being designed by the collaboration. This award is jointly sponsored by Basic Energy Sciences.

Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory will investigate the limits of stable acceleration of electrons at high efficiency in a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA). LWFAs have already demonstrated accelerating forces that are three orders of magnitude higher than those of the conventional accelerators, and the objective here is to use simulations and experiments to evaluate the feasibility of achieving efficient and stable acceleration of these beams, which is crucial to the future applicability of LWFAs to problems in high energy physics and basic energy research.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology will build the first prototype in the High-Current H2+ Cyclotron (HCHC) family of particle accelerators, testing direct axial injection of a high-current molecular hydrogen ion beam into a compact cyclotron through an RFQ and the subsequent formation of a stable vortex during acceleration to 1.5 MeV/amu. This vortex motion is crucial to clean extraction, paving the way to 5 mA continuous wave H2+ beams from compact cyclotrons with applications in particle physics, isotope production, and material testing.

Cornell University will explore the performance enhancement potential of novel metal coatings, metal doping, and alloying processes for superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) cavities. This project will reduce the cost, complexity, and energy consumption of particle accelerators, will advance the science and technology of superconducting materials, and will train students and young researchers in SRF research and technology who will fill a critical need for the U.S. workforce.

Facilitated Use of Office of Science Accelerator R&D Capabilities
One award was made under the Accelerator Stewardship Test Facility Program to facilitate access to the unique accelerator research capabilities of the Office of Science National Laboratories. Awards are for up to $300k and up to one year in duration.

Euclid TechLabs and Argonne National Laboratory will collaborate to test an electronic brachytherapy device designed to replace Iridium-192 isotopic sources. The device has been developed to allow autonomous operation, significantly reducing the unwanted radiation received by patients, doctors, and technicians.  The outcome of this collaboration will be an automated system capable of performing high dose rate internal electronic brachytherapy with sub-millimeter level precision.

Accelerator Technology Sector Business Plans

Awards were made for public-private teams to develop strategic plans specifically tailored to one sector of accelerator technology. Awards are for $200k and one year in duration.

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, ATI, General Atomics, C. F. Roark, RadiaBeam, AMMTodd Consulting, JW Rathke Engineering Services, and the Luther School of Business at Christopher Newport University are developing a business plan to develop a reliable and competitive domestic supply of superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) cavities for particle accelerators. The plan will be the results of market analysis, surveys, stakeholder interviews and a workshop, and will focus on ways to create a strong partnership between National Laboratories and Industry that could foster the growth of a domestic supply of SRF cavities. 

RadiaSoft and Foresight Science and Technology are working together, along with collaborators at DOE national lab accelerator facilities, to produce a strategic business plan for a successful and sustainable collaboration in using machine learning to enhance accelerator facility operations. The plan will specify the characteristics of a durable collaboration and identify the AI/ML capabilities and needs within facility operations.

Awards were made to public-private partnerships that enhance domestic production capability in key accelerator technologies needed for SC accelerator facilities and applications in medicine, clean energy, environmental cleanup, security, and industry.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Bruker OST, and Engi-Mat are collaborating to address supply chain vulnerabilities and enhance domestic production of superconducting Bi-2212 wire and high field magnets. Bi-2212 offers a very effective very-high-field magnet conductor; it is the only round-wire high-temperature superconducting (HTS) conductor and it has high engineering critical current density JE in long lengths and small AC losses. This award is jointly sponsored by High Energy Physics.

General Atomics, Argonne National Laboratory, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory seek to evolve the current state of superconducting undulator (SCU) magnets into an industrialized design that is optimized for large-quantity, low-cost fabrication. This effort will support growing the United States manufacturing supply chain of SCUs by bridging the gap in technical maturity of SCUs between the small quantity laboratory environment and the industrial sector.

WD | Advanced Materials, Euclid Beamlabs, and Applied Diamond have launched a strategic U.S.-based diamond consortium, dedicated to the domestic development and manufacturing of diffraction-grade diamonds for X-ray optics and other critical high technology applications. Leveraging their complementary strengths and the Advanced Photon Source (Argonne National Laboratory), the group's resulting advanced diamond substrates are capable of surviving the high-intensity conditions of the next generation of X-ray sources developed for medical, physics, and materials research.

Eleven awards were provided on a competitive basis in FY 2021 that seek to improve accelerator technologies across a wide range of applications, including accelerator-based scientific research in such fields as particle physics and materials science, and uses of accelerators for green energy, medicine, environmental cleanup, industry and security.

Accelerator Technology for Cancer Therapy

Awards in this area are for translational R&D to adapt accelerator technologies used for discovery science to provide faster, better, and less expensive patient treatments with proton and carbon ion beams.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Northwestern University, Loma Linda University Medical Center and Varian Medical Systems are developing a compact proton radiation therapy system capable of rapid (seconds) 3D scanning over a tumor volume of up to 4 liters in both transverse and longitudinal dimensions. Beam dynamics simulations are being developed to establish the feasibility of efficient RF capture of a realistic beam from a cyclotron source and precision dose scanning over a clinically relevant field using the captured proton beam characteristics.

High-Efficiency High Power Ultrafast Lasers

“Ultrafast” lasers—lasers producing pulses shorter than 1 picosecond—are widely used in scientific research as probes for chemistry, material science, and biology, and are also used to generate, accelerate, and control particle beams. Raising the pulse rate of such lasers 1000x will greatly increase the science that can be accomplished.

University of Michigan is applying machine learning techniques to stabilize and optimize the x-rays produced by laser-driven plasma accelerators by controlling spectral and spatial phase of the driving laser. Techniques that are compatible with high peak-power high repetition rate laser systems are being developed and include flowing-water-based plasma mirrors for temporal pulse contrast enhancement.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Colorado State University, University of Michigan, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Coherent Inc., and Varian Medical Systems are developing a novel path to increase ultrashort laser pulse energies at high repetition rates for science, industry, medicine, and homeland security applications, including laser-plasma accelerators and radiation sources. This research will explore coherent laser combining approaches to energy-scale nonlinear pulse compression beyond the state of the art, and near-field broadening methods to increase focusability of nonlinearly compressed beams.

High-Efficiency High Power Electron Accelerator Technology

Technologies capable of providing megawatt-class electron beams for industrial use are rare and expensive. Research in this topic area aims to significantly increase the power and reduce the cost of very high power electron accelerator technology.

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, General Atomics, and Hampton Roads Sanitation District will pursue the technology transfer of superconducting accelerator technology widely used in large-scale research machines to industrial use for compact irradiation facilities. The goal is to reach beam energies of up to 10 MeV and beam powers of more than 1 MW, which would significantly increase the field of potential applications in industry and environmental remediation such as wastewater treatment.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Cornell University, and Ion Linac Systems are performing a design study of a superconducting energy-recovery-linac as an efficient industrial irradiation source for wastewater treatment. Employing higher temperature cryocooled Nb3Sn superconducting cavities, an accelerator capable of producing more than 1 MW of 10 MeV beam will be designed.

Compact Accelerators for Security and Medicine

R&D in this topic is aimed at cost-effective, robust, automated, near-term compact sources of particles and radiation that enable new capabilities in security and medicine.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, General Atomics, TeleSecurity Sciences Inc and Imatrex Inc will collaborate to develop a compact linac for medical and security applications with tunable pulse-to-pulse output beam energy. The new highly efficient traveling wave accelerating structure will enable this 60 cm linac to achieve an output energy of up to 10 MeV when powered by a compact 9.3 GHz, 1.7 MW magnetron.

Long-Term Accelerator R&D with Broad Applications

Awards in this category fund long-term accelerator R&D of broad benefit to many applications, for efforts aimed at a significant increase in accelerator performance and/or decrease in cost.

Noise in Intense Electron Bunches

University of Chicago, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are pursuing theoretical and experimental studies of electron beam noise at infrared wavelength scales. Understanding the impact that acceleration and beam manipulation have on beam noise has implications for coherent x-ray generation and hadron beam cooling.

Beam Windows for Megawatt-class Irradiators

Old Dominion University and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are exploring the role materials, granular structure, and diffusion barriers can play in extending the lifetime of high-power beam windows. Creep, plastic deformation, and radiation-driven corrosion are among the mechanisms that will be explored in detail through irradiation and microstructural analysis.

Optimized Production of Superconducting Films

Old Dominion University, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are developing advanced magnetron sputtering techniques to produce the precisely controlled Nb₃Sn films needed for high performance superconducting cavities. Co-sputtering, multi-layer, and stoichiometric-source sputtering techniques are being investigated.

Accelerator Technology Sector Business Plans

Two awards were made for teams to work collaboratively to develop a strategic plan specifically tailored to one sector of the accelerator technology space. Awards are for up to $200k and up to one year in duration.

Advanced Superconductors and Magnets

Florida State University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Larke Business Solutions are working with the broader R&D and industrial communities to produce a strategic business plan for superconducting wire, cable, and high field magnets. The plan will identify the R&D and manufacturing needs for superconducting technologies used for scientific, security, green energy, medical, and industrial applications.

Radiofrequency Power Sources

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Cornell University, RadiaBeam, and TibaRay are working with the broader R&D and industrial communities to produce a strategic business plan for high power radiofrequency power source manufacturing The plan will identify the R&D and manufacturing needs for radiofrequency sources used for scientific, security, environmental, medical, and industrial applications.

Twelve awards were provided on a competitive basis in FY 2020 that seek to improve accelerator technologies across a wide range of applications, including accelerator-based scientific research in such fields as particle physics and materials science, and uses of accelerators for medicine, industry and defense.

Accelerator Technology for Cancer Therapy

Awards in this area are for translational R&D to adapt accelerator technologies used for discovery science to provide faster, better, and less expensive patient treatments with proton and carbon ion beams.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,Varian Medical Systems Particle Therapy, and thePaul Scherrer Institutewill develop a superconducting gantry for proton therapy. The use of novel, high-temperature superconducting magnet technology eliminates risks associated with superconducting magnet field change during treatment and enables cost savings through simplification of the cryogenic system.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Michigan, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are developing coherent combination of fiber lasers to realize highly efficient ultrashort pulse lasers with an unprecedented combination of high repetition rate and energy. With key enabling concepts recently demonstrated, development is focusing on a 100mJ energy-level demonstration, on technologies to access 100fs pulse lengths and to improve pre-pulse contrast, and on an integrated design to scale future systems to the multi-Joule energies needed by compact laser-plasma particle accelerators and other societally important applications. 

University of Alabama, Birmingham, University of California Los Angeles, and Brookhaven National Laboratory are collaborating to develop optically-pumped LWIR ultrafast lasers using MWIR laser pumping. A sequence of NIR and MWIR lasers will be used to generate both high energy pump radiation at 4.3 microns and ultrafast seed pulses suitable for pumping and seeding a high pressure isotopic CO2 mixture to produce ultrashort high energy LWIR pulses.

High-Efficiency High Power Electron Accelerator Technology

Technologies capable of providing megawatt-class electron beams for industrial use are rare and expensive. Research in this topic area aims to significantly increase the power and reduce the cost of very high power electron accelerator technology. 

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, L3Harris Electron Devices, and L3Harris Applied Technologies will demonstrate an 80 percent efficient, 100 kW CW High Efficiency Inductive Output Tube at 1.3 GHz and develop a conceptual design for a ten-beam, 1 MW version. The approach combines L3Harris’ proven broadcast amplifiers with modern high efficiency klystron design methods, and will significantly improve the overall efficiency of high power accelerator systems for environmental, medical, and food sterilization applications.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratoryand General Atomics will develop a compact, cost-effective, and energy-efficient linear accelerator for industrial waste treatment and sterilization with high energy and high power electron beams. Novel concepts will be used to achieve continuous wave, 1 MeV, 1 MW electron beam with an rf-to-beam efficiency greater than 95%.

Compact Accelerators for Security and Medicine

R&D in this topic is aimed at cost-effective, robust, automated, near-term compact sources of particles and radiation that enable new capabilities in security and medicine.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University School of Medicine, and TibaRay Inc. will develop a particle accelerator system to deliver very high energy electrons (up to 100 MeV) in a clinical setting. The results of this R&D will enable, for the first time, direct electron beam therapy for tumors throughout the body at an ultra-fast “FLASH” dose rate that could allow more healthy tissue sparing and overcome challenges of patient motion.

Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ­will develop adaptive machine learning-driven diagnostics and controls for compact accelerators with a focus on ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) for mesoscale material science dynamics. The goal is to develop algorithms that automatically and autonomously adjust for time variation, unmodeled changes, and disturbances to continuously achieve optimal control without the need for constant intervention from beam physics experts, a capability which is of great importance for space-based and medical accelerators.

Long-Term Accelerator R&D with Broad Applications

Awards in this category fund long-term accelerator R&D of broad benefit to many applications, for efforts aimed at a significant increase in accelerator performance and/or decrease in cost. .

High Accuracy Modeling of Spin-Polarized Beams

Next-Generation Ultrafast Electron Diffraction

Cornell University will use the injector section of CBETA to simulate the shortest bunches with small emittance that can be obtained in the MeV energy range, from the DC electron source through Injector cyomodule to the diagnostics line and the merger section connecting the two. Ultrafast Electron Diffraction (UED) is an active area for accelerator physicists and condensed matter physics alike, as it has the potential to form images similar to electron microscopes but with extreme time resolution, for example to produce movies faster than lattice dynamics.

Advanced Photocathodes with Integrated Photonics

Turn-Key High Power SRF Accelerators

Cornell University will develop and test key technology needed for realizing turn-key, high-power accelerators based on superconducting accelerating cavities for a wide range of compact accelerator applications in industry and science, cutting across disciplines. This work will explore next-generation microwave cavities based on the superconductor Nb3Sn, cooled by conduction using commercial cryocoolers.

Facilitated Use of Office of Science Accelerator R&D Capabilities

Robust Superlattice Photocathodes for High Current Spin-Polarized Beams

Cornell University and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility will perform experiments aimed at developing new methods to produce robust Negative Electron Affinity activation layers in GaAs-based photocathodes for the production of highly spin-polarized electron beams.  Photocathodes coated using these robust layers will be used to perform lifetime and polarimetry measurements in an electron gun with beam energies up to 200 kV and with high currents in mA range.

Thirteen awards were provided on a competitive basis in FY 2019 that seek to improve accelerator technologies across a wide range of applications, including accelerator-based scientific research in such fields as particle physics and materials science, and uses of accelerators for medicine, industry and defense.

High-Efficiency High Power Ultrafast Lasers
“Ultrafast” lasers—lasers producing pulses shorter than 1 picosecond—are widely used in scientific research as probes for chemistry, material science, and biology, and are also used to generate, accelerate, and control particle beams. Raising the pulse rate of such lasers 1000x will greatly increase the science that can be accomplished.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will probe the limits of Helium gas cooling of laser amplifier slabs, paving the way for a 100-1000× increase in the average power of state-of-the-art ultrashort pulsed high peak power laser systems.

Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Central Florida, and II-VI Incorporated will conduct a systematic study of properties of a broad range of materials under the action of highly-intense long-wave infrared (LWIR) laser pulses. The results of this study will be applied to advance high-peak-power LWIR lasers into the sub-picosecond mode of operation via non-linear pulse compression.

High-Efficiency High Power Electron Accelerator Technology
Technologies capable of providing megawatt-class electron beams for industrial use are rare and expensive. Research in this topic area aims to significantly increase the power and reduce the cost of very high power electron accelerator technology.

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and General Atomics will prototype and test a single-cell superconducting radiofrequency accelerating cavity inside a cryostat cooled by conduction using cryocoolers. The aim is to demonstrate achieving an accelerating gradient usable for a 1 MeV, 1 MW-class continuous-wave electron accelerator for treatment of wastewater or flue gases.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and General Atomics will team up to design an economical superconducting accelerating structure capable of producing high-power, high-energy electron beams for environmental applications. The team will adopt a new cryocooling technology to demonstrate operation of the prototype accelerating structure at cryogenic temperatures.

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in partnership with ScanTech Sciences Inc. and Hampton Roads Sanitation District will develop 500 kW-class highly-efficient industrial accelerators using a newly designed room-temperature accelerating structure. These accelerators are tailored for use in cleaning up wastewater streams, but are also beneficial for many other applications including fracking fluid remediation, medical sterilization and food pasteurization.

Long-Term Accelerator R&D with Broad Applications
Awards in this category fund long-term accelerator R&D of broad benefit to many applications, for efforts aimed at a significant increase in accelerator performance and/or decrease in cost.

Simulation of High-Performance Electron Sources

Northern Illinois University will develop state-of-the-art numerical methods and software frameworks to enable ultra-cold and ultra-bright electron source optimization and performance characterization.

Light and Electron Emission as RF Breakdown Probes

Michigan State University will collaborate with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory to develop a deeper understanding of physical origins of the vacuum breakdown/arc by testing the hot cathodic scenario of its formation. The new knowledge will help reduce breakdown, allowing more compact, cost-effective sources of high brightness X-rays, and cancer therapy systems.

Theoretical and Experimental Investigation in Accelerator Physics

University of California, Los Angeles will undertake a wide ranging suite of investigations in advanced accelerator science, with a particular concentration on high gradient acceleration. These new methods will enable compact accelerators for applications ranging from light sources to frontier discovery accelerators, and to direct exploitation of electron beams in imaging.

Meter-scale Plasma Channels by Superluminal Ionization Waves

Stony Brook University and University of Rochester will explore the application of chromatic focusing of broadband lasers to the production of meter-long plasma channels. Such channels can be used for particle acceleration, radiation generation, fusion research, and novel amplification techniques for short pulse lasers.

From Theory to Practical High-Brightness Photocathodes
University of Illinois at Chicago will collaborate with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to employ computational techniques to select and subsequently measure candidate practical high brightness photocathodes that promise to improve the performance of current (and future) x-ray free electron lasers and ultrafast electron scattering and imaging systems.

Impacts of Microstructure on Niobium Superconducting RF Cavity Performance

Florida State University and Michigan State University will work to develop a fundamental materials understanding of high purity niobium metal used for particle accelerators, light sources, quantum computing and sensitive detector applications. The ability to understand defects and their origin will help us to develop of cost effective fabrication strategies for next generation superconducting radio frequency cavities.

Facilitated Use of Office of Science Accelerator R&D Capabilities
Two awards were made under the Accelerator Stewardship Test Facility Program to facilitate access to the unique accelerator research capabilities of the Office of Science National Laboratories. Awards are for up to $300k and up to one year in duration.

Development of High Performance Medium Velocity Superconducting Elliptical Cavities for Hadron Linacs

Michigan State University, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory will develop advanced surface treatments for high performance superconducting cavities for acceleration of ions in the energy range from 200 MeV/u to 400 MeV/u. The results of this R&D will directly reduce the size and cost of superconducting accelerators, benefitting both discovery science and medicine.

Application of Electron Beam Technology to Decompose Persistent Emerging Drinking Water Contaminants

Stony Brook University, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have partnered to test the application of e-beam accelerator to treat emerging contaminants such as perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and 1,4-dioxane in drinking water.