Third party Funding
Third party Funding
In addition to our flagship activities, KALDERA and FLASHForward, we have a diverse portfolio of third-party funded projects supporting our mission to advance the fundamental understanding of plasma accelerators and mature the technology towards applications.
Our projects are funded through a wide variety of sources, ranging from the DFG Emmy-Noether programme (SPLICE), to BMBF-funded projects (BEETLE), to a European network for PhD students (EPACE), and more.
SPLICE
APHEX
BEETLE
EPACE and EuPRAXIA
SPLICE (Structured Plasmas for Laser-Driven Control of Electron Beams) is a 6 year DFG funded project to develop plasma sources for generating high-quality and high-energy electron beams that are suitable for driving compact x-ray FELs or for injection into a storage ring.
We optically structure the 3D plasma density profile in the LPA to facilitate both guiding and controlled injection.
Point of Contact: Rob Shalloo
One of our key application-oriented projects is the All-oPtical High-Energy X-ray (APHEX) source. With funding contributed through the Hi-Acts innovation platform, APHEX use inverse Compton scattering to generate X-rays with energies of 100 keV and beyond. APHEX leverages novel methods to tailor both the electron beam and the scatter laser pulse to create X-ray beams with percent-level bandwidth, ideal for non-destructive testing and medical imaging applications.
BEETLE is a collaboration between TRUMPF Scientific Lasers and DESY, with AFS and UKE as additional partners. Funded through a joint BMBF project, our partnership combines expertise in laser technology, plasma acceleration and medical applications to evaluate the potential of laser-plasma accelerators for cancer research and treatment. The project’s primary goal is to develop a high average power laser-plasma accelerator delivering 100 MeV electrons beams driven by a post-compressed ytterbium laser.
The EPACE (European compact accelerators, their applications, and Entrepreneurship) is a doctoral network, funded by EU’s flagship funding program for doctoral education and postdoctoral training of researchers; the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
EPACE will launch in January 2025 to educate the next generation of scientists on compact accelerator technologies and explore applications and commercial opportunities. The four-year-long program funds 15 PhD projects to perform research within the consortium and undergo comprehensive training including secondments at partner institutions and companies, network-wide events and summer schools.
EuPRAXIA is a proposal for a future European test facility for plasma accelerator research. We are part of an EU-funded preparatory phase project, EuPRAXIA-PP.
Together with colleagues at CNRS, we are coordinating work package 10 on “Plasma Components and Systems”, assessing the current technical status of plasma components and related systems.