Falling Walls Falling Walls Science Summit 2022

New Particle Accelerators: On a Nanophotonic Chip?

Marija Vranic, Peter Hommelhoff

2022 Circle

Particle accelerators are often thought of as large, expensive facilities or instruments. Typically, these machines have a variety of uses from fundamental science and medical applications to manufacturing semiconductors. How can particle accelerators be reinvented and downsized by the use of advanced nano fabrication and laser technologies? Additionally, what significance can this technology have in the next decade?
The event is cohosted by our partner Berthold Leibinger Stiftung.

Marija Vranic

Marija Vranic obtained her MSc degree from University of Belgrade, Serbia and her PhD at Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, Portugal. After PhD, she was working in Extreme Light Infrustructure in Prague, Czech Republic, and then returned to Portugal. Her research is focused on plasmas in extreme conditions, where quantum effects can affect the collective plasma dynamics. She combines analytical theory and massively parallel computer simulations to perform the studies relevant for state-of-the-art and near-future laser experiments using the most intense lasers in the world. Marija is a winner of the international John Dawson PhD thesis prize (best PhD thesis worldwide in the field of plasma-based accelerators), the IBM Scientific Prize and Ada Lovelace PRACE award.

Peter Hommelhoff

Peter Hommelhoff’s current research interests span from laser-based nanophotonic particle acceleration via attosecond science to quantum-enhanced electron microscopy. He is professor of physics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU) in Erlangen, Germany. From 2007 to 2012, he was head of a Max Planck Research Group at MPI for Quantum Optics in Garching. Prior to this, he did a four-year postdoctoral stint in Mark Kasevich’s group at Stanford University, pioneering ultrafast nanometer electron source. From 1999 through 2002 he worked on this PhD under the supervision of Theodor Hänsch at LMU Munich, demonstrating Bose-Einstein condensation in an atomic chip trap. In 1999 he obtained the Dipl. Phys. ETH from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, and in 1997 the pre-diploma from Technical University Berlin. Hommelhoff has won an ERC Consolidator and an ERC Advanced Grant, the 2020 Leibinger Innovation Award (2nd Prize jointly with R. L. Byer from Stanford) and the 2022 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Association (DFG).