Project Grant FA86552417030

This $850,000 National Science Foundation project grant supports research at the University of Colorado Boulder to advance understanding of particle acceleration in plasmas driven by lasers. Specifically, the three-year award will fund simulation and experimental studies of optical field ionization-generated plasma channels for particle acceleration using laser wakefield acceleration. Researchers will conduct accurate simulations of plasma channel formation, characterize generated...

Radiabeam Technologies, LLC received a $199,815 Project Grant award from the Department of Energy Office of Science on June 27, 2022 to support development of a hybrid structure-wakefield accelerator with a plasma photocathode through March 26, 2023. The award is being administered under the Office of Science Financial Assistance Program (CFDA 81.049), which aims to deliver scientific discoveries and tools to transform understanding of nature and advance U.S. energy security and economic...

This $600,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Physics supports research to develop a high-density, axially homogeneous helicon plasma source for the AWAKE (Advanced Proton Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment) project at CERN. The research aims to qualify the helicon plasma generation technology for application in next-generation particle accelerator systems, which could significantly reduce the size and cost of future linear accelerators...

This three-year, $345,000 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program will support collaborative research between the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Marquette University to advance understanding of novel plasma physics processes in antimatter experiments. The researchers will develop new kinetic theory and molecular dynamics simulations to study electron and positron compression, antiproton cooling, and mixing/recombination of antiprotons...

This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will fund the University of Maryland, College Park to upgrade its existing 100 terawatt laser system to increase output pulse energy by a factor of four. Totaling $155,249, the award under the NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) will support relativistic physics experiments in plasma, nonlinear optics, and laboratory astrophysics through July 2025. Specifically, the upgraded laser will enable tabletop...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) supports a study of the impact different types of obstacles have on turbulent, magnetized plasma flow in a wind-tunnel laboratory experiment. The $475,490 award to Bryn Mawr College will fund an experiment using a coaxial plasma gun to launch turbulent magnetized plasma at high speeds down a vacuum chamber, with embedded obstacles that can be either solid objects or...

Xcimer Energy, Inc. received a $3.57 million Cooperative Agreement from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) (CFDA 81.135), awarded November 18, 2025, to develop the Hybrid Pumped Excimer Laser (HYPER-LASER) through November 17, 2028. The three-year project pursues a more efficient approach to pumping the krypton-fluoride (KRF, 248 nanometer) excimer laser system, which Xcimer Energy is advancing as a key technology platform for commercial inertial fusion energy (IFE)...

Muons Inc. was awarded a $200,000 Project Grant from the Department of Energy Office of Science on February 14, 2022 to develop innovative magnetron power sources for superconducting radio frequency (SRF) accelerators. The grant is being administered under the Office of Science Financial Assistance Program (CFDA 81.049), which aims to deliver scientific discoveries and tools to transform understanding of nature and advance U.S. energy and economic security. Under this nine-month award concluding...

This $450,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Physics supports an effort to develop a comprehensive database of plasma photoionization processes with practical applications in fields such as combustion and high-speed aerodynamics. The "ECLIPSE: EXPLORING PHYSICS OF MULTIPHOTON IONIZATION USING THOMSON COHERENT MICROWAVE SCATTERING" project will utilize a novel Thomson in-phase coherent microwave scattering (TMS) technique to precisely...

This $500,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) supports research at Princeton University to investigate interactions between structured laser light and plasmas. The university will use high-power elliptically polarized and vortex laser beams to produce plasma harmonics with tunable polarization states for the first time. Two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations will compare to experimental results. The...