Accelerator & Beam Physics
	Prof. Pietro Musumeci Photoelectron Generated Amplified Spontaneous Radiation Source (PEGASUS)
	Our primary research interests lie in applying the tremendous progress of the laser technology of the last decades to provide high quality, ultra-short particle beams from compact accelerators. Ranging from long term goals related to the use of such beams for high energy physics research to more immediate medical and basic science applications, the use of lasers in the acceleration, manipulation and diagnostics of particle beams is definitely destined to play an important role in the future of accelerators. The core of the research program is the on-campus PEGASUS laboratory, home of a small university-size accelerator beamline for research in ultrafast beams, advanced beam manipulation and diagnostics techniques. Experiments currently planned include novel beam instrumentation like RF deflectors and Electro-Optic Sampling Technique, exploration of new regimes of operation of RF photoinjectors, high resolution longitudinal phase space measurements. One of the main goals of the recently commissioned laboratory is the development of a new, potentially revolutionary, technique in ultrafast material studies : Ultrafast relativistic electron diffraction. Please visit the PEGASUS Laboratory website for more information.
	Gil Travish Beam Physics & Accelerator Technology
	Particle accelerators are often called the “engines of discovery”. These remarkable instruments of science, allow us to peer into the shortest time scales and at the smallest objects—atto-second time scales and at nano-meter sizes. Still, the ubiquity of accelerators is hampered by cost, size and imagination. My work seeks to take the particle accelerator and beam physics to the chip-scale and thereby open up new applications in science and technology. The Micro Accelerator Platform (MAP) is well suited to the REU program and offers the student researcher the ability to make impact on real-world research. The MAP, an ongoing project within the Particle Beam Physics Laboratory, seeks to create a “particle accelerator on a chip”. With applications in medicine, industry and research, the MAP promises to bring relativistic electrons and their attendant x-rays into new environments and uses. One of our long term goals is to develop a mm-scale, laser-powered, disposable, relativistic particle source. Such a device could be used to deliver therapeutic radiation, providing a new tool for cancer treatment. This multidisciplinary research effort affords opportunities ranging from material science to nanotechnology, to beam physics and to biophysics. You will be working closely with the PI and possibly other students to develop and study one of the listed areas of research. In the process, you will learn about beam physics, radiation, photonics, nanotechnology and what it takes to develop a new device from a ground-up physics perspective.