TAU Systems partners with Berkeley Lab to Demonstrate the U.S.'s First Laser-driven Vacuum UltraViolet Free Electron Laser

The collaboration at Berkeley Lab's BELLA Center paves the way for breakthroughs in disease prevention and cures, as well as semiconductor chips and more

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TAU Systems, a producer of ultrafast, compact plasma accelerators, today announced a partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to advance the science and technology of compact accelerator systems and advanced light sources, with the goal of making these tools widely available to a broad range of end users and industry.

In the near term, Tau is developing systems that focus on applications within the semiconductor industry, e.g. metrology, photoresist, mask and optics R&D and interference lithography. The collaborative experience gained on the compact light source subsystems at the BELLA Center, in the Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division, will be applied to TAU's first specialized light high average power prototype system for lithography and metrology applications. TAU's second system will then extend the capability of this first prototype towards x-ray laser pulses for the study of macromolecules. The knowledge gained can pave the way for disease prevention and cures.

The team at Berkeley Lab has been pioneering laser-driven electron beams for the last 25 years. They are one of the world's leading research groups in this field and responsible for some of its greatest break-throughs. This new public-private collaboration is an example how National Laboratory science discoveries could enable a transition from the laboratory to industrial and commercial applications. Specifically, TAU and Berkeley Lab aim to demonstrate the first laser-driven VUV Free Electron Laser in the US. The team will be using a 100 TW peak-power laser fitted with an undulator at one of BELLA center's core facilities - the BELLA-HTU laser. They will be targeting challenges that are important to science understanding and technological robustness: more control, more stability, and more applications.

"Berkeley Lab has a rich history in developing cutting edge accelerator technologies, and the laser wakefield accelerator process is no exception. The BELLA center is a world leader in this technology," said Bjorn Manuel Hegelich, CEO of TAU Systems. "Couple this with similar and complementary expertise within TAU Systems and you have a team that is greater than the sum of its parts, together pushing the technology forward at a pace not achievable by either in isolation."

www.tausystems.com. 

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SOURCE TAU Systems