<ul><li>Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the US have produced the world’s most powerful ultrashort electron beam, concentrating petawatt-level peak powers into femtosecond-long pulses at an energy of 10 GeV and a current of around 0.1 MA.</li><li>The ultra-compressed beam can be used to study materials science, quantum physics, and astrophysics phenomena that were previously inaccessible.</li><li>The researchers achieved the compressed beam by shaping the electron bunch's profile with a laser and then boosting its energy in downstream accelerating cavities, followed by magnetic compression.</li><li>The team plans to increase the beam's current further using a different plasma-based compression technique in the near future.</li></ul>

Ultrashort electron beam sets new power record

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