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Applied Sciences
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New Challenges in Plasma Accelerators
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New Challenges in Plasma Accelerators

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Optics and Lasers".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2026) | Viewed by 1574

Editors

Dr. Livio Verra

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, 00044 Frascati, Italy
Interests: plasma wakefield acceleration; beam–plasma instabilities; beam diagnostics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Mario Galletti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, INFN—Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, 00044 Frascati, Italy
Interests: applied/experimental physics; optics and lasers; nonlinear optics; laser development; ultrafast lasers; high-intensity lasers; laser diagnostics; plasma physics; plasma diagnostics; laser–plasma interactions; laser–matter interactions; accelerator physics; electron acceleration; proton acceleration; ion acceleration; high harmonic generation; X-ray sources; computational physics; numerical simulation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Research on plasma wakefield acceleration has shown tremendous progress over the last thirty years. Accelerating gradients orders of magnitudes larger than those seen in conventional accelerators have been demonstrated, as well as substantial improvements in the quality and control of the accelerated beam.

A number of challenges still need to be addressed in order for us to use plasma-based accelerators to deliver beams in real-world applications:

  • Ensuring the stability and reproducibility of the acceleration process;
  • Enabling resilience to beam–plasma instabilities over long propagation distances;
  • The creation of acceleration at a high repetition rate;
  • Ensuring the robustness of all components;
  • The staging of multiple wakefield accelerators.

This Special Issue will be dedicated to these and other challenges, marking a step on the road towards the realization of user-oriented plasma wakefield accelerators.

Dr. Livio Verra
Dr. Mario Galletti
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • plasma wakefield acceleration
  • plasma–beam interactions
  • wakefield collider
  • particle accelerator
  • beam diagnostics
  • plasma diagnostics
  • plasma sources
  • staging
  • high-repetition-rate plasma sources

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 10319 KB  
Article
S-Band Klystron Intra-Pulse Phase Feedback Upgrade at SPARC_LAB Facility
by Xianghe Fang, Marco Bellaveglia, Alessandro Gallo, Riccardo Magnanimi, Andrea Michelotti, Sergio Quaglia, Michele Scampati, Giorgio Scarselletta, Beatrice Serenellini, Simone Tocci and Luca Piersanti
Appl. Sci. 2026, 16(12), 5733; https://doi.org/10.3390/app16125733 - 6 Jun 2026
Viewed by 245
Abstract
One of the main technological challenges in plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) research and development is achieving stable and reproducible acceleration. In particular, for PWFA schemes based on particle-driven plasma wave excitation, beam stability and timing jitter are increasingly critical. In these configurations, magnetic [...] Read more.
One of the main technological challenges in plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) research and development is achieving stable and reproducible acceleration. In particular, for PWFA schemes based on particle-driven plasma wave excitation, beam stability and timing jitter are increasingly critical. In these configurations, magnetic or radio-frequency (RF) compression schemes are often used, and the beam time-of-arrival jitter at the end of the linear accelerator can be strongly correlated with the phase noise of RF accelerating structures operated off-crest. For this reason, since 2008, an RF phase fast-feedback system acting within each RF pulse has been successfully implemented at Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (LNF-INFN) at the Sources for Plasma Accelerators and Radiation Compton with Laser And Beam (SPARC_LAB) facility, operating on both S-band (2.856 GHz) and C-band (5.712 GHz) klystrons. This paper presents the upgrade and optimization of the fast-feedback system for an S-band klystron powered by a pulse-forming network modulator. This technology introduces significantly higher intrinsic phase noise than, for instance, solid state-based modulators. It is therefore essential to minimize such phase fluctuations to keep the machine stability under control. Both the feedback hardware (electronic boards and RF circuitry) and the software (controller and user interface) have been upgraded. Tests performed at SPARC_LAB achieved a reduction in klystron-induced jitter of a factor of 30, reaching values below 15 fs rms on both power plants. Moreover, adding a remote control of the feedback loop enabled a straightforward optimization of the operating point, allowing the phase stability performance to be pushed close to its practical limits. A detailed analysis of RF phase noise measurements with the fast-feedback loop in operation is also presented. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Plasma Accelerators)
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12 pages, 2453 KB  
Article
Meter-Scale Discharge Capillaries for Plasma-Based Accelerators
by Lucio Crincoli, Romain Demitra, Valerio Lollo, Donato Pellegrini, Massimo Ferrario and Angelo Biagioni
Appl. Sci. 2026, 16(7), 3291; https://doi.org/10.3390/app16073291 - 28 Mar 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 558
Abstract
Gas-filled discharge capillaries are widely used in the field of plasma-based particle accelerators, due to their compactness, cost-effectiveness and versatility for different applications. Technological improvement of such plasma sources is necessary to enable high energy gain acceleration at the meter scale, as required [...] Read more.
Gas-filled discharge capillaries are widely used in the field of plasma-based particle accelerators, due to their compactness, cost-effectiveness and versatility for different applications. Technological improvement of such plasma sources is necessary to enable high energy gain acceleration at the meter scale, as required for next-generation particle colliders and light sources. Beam quality preservation within such an acceleration length involves accurate tuning of the plasma properties. In particular, precise tailoring of the plasma density distribution is required to control the emittance growth of particle bunches during the acceleration process. In this context, this paper presents a scalable and versatile approach for the design of meter-scale discharge capillaries, aimed at achieving fine tuning of the plasma density distribution, with the possibility of locally controlling the density profile by acting on the source geometry. Forty-centimeter-long capillaries are designed using numerical fluid dynamics simulations and tested in a dedicated plasma module. Different arrangements of the gas inlets are tested, with their number and diameter varied, to assess the effect of the capillary geometry on the plasma properties. Plasma density measurements show that a higher number of inlets with variable diameter along the plasma formation channel provides an enhancement in the homogeneity of the electron plasma density distribution. Longitudinal density plateaus are observed along most of the plasma channel length, with a center-to-end density uniformity of up to 80%. The experimental results highlight the proposed approach’s capability to modulate the longitudinal plasma density distribution by acting on the capillary geometry, thus providing uniform density profiles over the meter scale, as required for plasma-based acceleration experiments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Plasma Accelerators)
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