Near-field laser accelerators

One particular laser accelerator is discussed in detail: the Template Laser (AT) Accelerator. According to one design, it employs mirrors placed periodically along the particle trajectory. According to another design, the mirrors are omitted, and additional electromagnetic fields are employed instead. The former design is a near field accelerator, but the latter is not. It is shown that contrary to intuition, a multiplicy of Fourier components will accelerate more efficiently than if the radiation is concentrated into only one component. Radiation damage on thin mirrors can be reduced by allowing appropriately phased additional radiation to impinge on the backside of the mirror. The RLT accelerator makes use of a partially reflecting cylinder to stack photons. A second type of resonance can further enhance the accelerating field (R2LT accelerator)