Research Capabilities at Brookhaven Accelerator Test Facility*

Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Accelerator Test Facility (ATF), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, is a proposal-based user facility for lasers and electron beam-driven research. Over the last three decades, ATF has become an internationally recognized destination for users who benefit from the access to unique research capabilities not otherwise available to individual institutions and businesses. Our combination of high-power lasers and a high-brightness electron linear accelerator empower the ATF users to pursue a state-of-the-art research program in Accelerator Science, Advanced Accelerator Concepts (AAC) and Novel Radiation Sources.

In this talk, we will present our path in enhancing the electron beam and laser capabilities with special attention to our pioneering research towards attaining a multi-terawatt, sub-picosecond laser pulses in a long-wave infrared (LWIR) spectral domain. In our recent R&D effort, we demonstrated 1.5 TW, 700 fs, 9.2 µm laser pulses paving a path to potentially achieving tens of terawatt peak powers in few optical cycles. Such novel ultra-fast LWIR lasers will allow to explore the wavelength scaling beneficial for a variety of applications presently studied extensively with shorter near- to midwave-infrared sources, including laser wake field electron acceleration with a potential promise of an all-optical scheme for generating collider-quality electrons beams.