First laser-driven electron accelerator demonstrated
http://www.gizmag.com/first-laser-driven-electron-accelerator-stanford-slac/29297/

If Angus MacGyver was a particle physicist, he might face a challenge like this: Take a femtosecond laser and a fused quartz grating and make the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. Despite the apparent incongruity of the resources and the goal, researchers at Stanford University and the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have fabricated a proof-of-principle electron accelerator using just such equipment. In the demonstration, electrons from a 60 MeV beam saw a force of acceleration about ten times greater than possible in a conventional accelerator.

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