There are many applications for particle accelerators, even outside research facilities, but for the longest time they have been large, cumbersome machines, not to mention very expensive to operate.

Muon beams can now be created in a device that is the length of a ruler. Researchers at Berkeley Lab presented a foot-long (30 cm) compact laser-plasma accelerator (LPA) that can generate and detect ...

Scientists at MIT discovered that chaotic laser light can spontaneously form a highly focused beam instead of scattering—if the conditions are just right. This “pencil beam” enabled them to image the ...

Controlling and trapping molecules, units of a substance consisting of two or more chemically bound atoms, with laser light ...