# On-chip integrated laser-driven particle accelerator

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first on-chip integrated dielectric laser accelerator that uses a waveguide to accelerate electrons, significantly advancing the potential for compact, scalable particle accelerators.

## Contribution

It introduces a waveguide-integrated DLA designed via inverse design, enabling scalable, on-chip acceleration of electrons with high gradients.

## Key findings

- Accelerates electrons by 1.21 keV over 30 μm
- Achieves peak acceleration gradient of 40.3 MeV/m
- First experimental demonstration of on-chip integrated DLA

## Abstract

Particle accelerators represent an indispensable tool in science and industry. However, the size and cost of conventional radio-frequency accelerators limit the utility and reach of this technology. Dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) provide a compact and cost-effective solution to this problem by driving accelerator nanostructures with visible or near-infrared (NIR) pulsed lasers, resulting in a 10$^4$ reduction of scale. Current implementations of DLAs rely on free-space lasers directly incident on the accelerating structures, limiting the scalability and integrability of this technology. Here we present the first experimental demonstration of a waveguide-integrated DLA, designed using a photonic inverse design approach. These on-chip devices accelerate sub-relativistic electrons of initial energy 83.4 keV by 1.21 keV over 30 um, providing peak acceleration gradients of 40.3 MeV/m. This progress represents a significant step towards a completely integrated MeV-scale dielectric laser accelerator.