Accelerator physics: Electrons hang ten on laser wake.

Reports that high acceleration rates and the production of well-populated, high-quality beams, signal the potential of electron accelerators which make electrons surf a laser-driven plasma wave. Generation of waves in a plasma using short laser pulses; Observation that particles have been accelerated in wakefields at rates that are more than a thousand times higher than those achieved by accelerators based on conventional large-scale technology.