Particle beam accelerators

This patent describes an apparatus for the acceleration of charged particles. The apparatus consists of a source radiation beam of intense coherent polarized traveling electromagnetic waves, bringing the radiation beams or waves to a near-diffraction limited focal region, with the near-diffraction limited focal region created by an optical or quasi-optical radiation resonator operating in a tem mode. A charged particle stream or streams is caused to be present at the focal region is then accelerated to high energies by the electric field vector of the traveling wave, which is transverse to the direction of propagation of the radiation beam. This causes the charged particles to achieve significant transverse velocity, and to cause them to then interact with the magnetic field vector of the radiation beam via a vxb ponderomotive force. This deflects the charged particles in the direction of the propagating radiation beam and causes the transverse velocity vectors of the charged particles to remain in near synchronism with the electric field vector of the traveling wave, and to continue to gain energy until the charged particles leave the high field focal region