Our lab is all about exciting experiments with powerful ultrafast laser light and electron beams in electron microscopes, with an eye towards practical, applied physics.
While the lab is de-facto under construction, there is just so much to do in the meantime.. Join us!

 

  • SEM image of a nanofabricated structures

    Comparison between top- and side-illumination | Shiloh et. al., Opt. Express 29, 14403 (2021)

  • Silicon chip on 1-cent coin

    Silicon chip showing accelerator mesas, placed on a 1 Euro-cent for size comparison | S. Kraus and J. Litzel, Laserphysik, FAU

  • Silicon chip on 1-cent coin

    Silicon chip showing accelerator mesas, placed on a 1 Euro-cent for size comparison | S. Kraus and J. Litzel, Laserphysik, FAU

  • SEM image of a nanofabricated structure

    A nanofabricated electron accelerator on a mesa etched with a DRIE process

  • Visual description of the experimental setup in a PINEM experiment

    Quantum-coherent electron-photon interaction in a scanning electron microscope | https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.235301

In a nutshell..

Particle accelerators and electron accelerators are all around us. There are many technologies (circular accelerators, linear accelerators, laser-plasma accelerators, alternating-field and DC field accelerators..), each with seemingly completely different goals (discovering new physics, generating coherent x-rays and tunable light, medical irradiation, treatment, and imaging, polymer cross-linking in the rubber industry, food strelization, integrated circuitry fabrication...). They are generally quite big instruments (e.g. 27 km circumference) and can be costly to erect and maintain. In our research group, we suggest to use femtosecond lasers to power electron accelerators built in the University's cleanroom facility - on a silicon wafer.

This kind of nanophotonic laser accelerator research is unique in its versatile ability to produce electron beams with sufficient quality for high-resolution electron microscopy at nearly-arbitrarily-high electron energies, and pulses at MHz repetition rates which are only limited by the laser technology. Nanophotonic accelerators are at the interface between matter waves, photons, classical electromagnetics, nanofabrication, and quantum science. From there, they extend long arms that potentially reach the realm of high-energy particle physics, material science, quantum electrodynamics, and at the same time real-world applications such as miniature medical irradiation devices.

 

In the news

Haaretz headlineOur latest nanophotonic electron on-chip accelerator Nature publication was recently covered in Haaretz, along with a huge splash in other news outlets and mainstream media in the world. Here are some of them:

 
CERN Courier

 

 

..Sounds interesting?

Take a journey into Science with us.. Click here for more!!

 

Open positions

We are currently searching for students interested in theory and simulation of nanophotonics, electron optics, accelerator physics, and quantum electron-photon interactions. Join us and be exposed to and engage in diverse, research-front topics:

  • Particle accelerators
  • Electron optics
  • Nanophotonics
  • Nanofabrication
  • Light-matter interaction at the quantum limit

 

This includes Bachelor students looking to work on their final project, MSc and PhD applicants, and possibly also per-hour mini-jobs. International applicants, post-docs, are also encouraged to apply!

 

More details are just an email away!

Roy Shiloh, roy.shiloh@mail.huji.ac.il
Danciger A, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram
Institute of Applied Physics, Faculty of Science 
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem 9190501, Israel

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