Researchers develop graphene coating that improves accelerator electron source lifespans

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed and tested a graphene coating for next-generation, electron-beam accelerator equipment – an especially challenging application of the technology. The team estimates that this success can have the potential for “Atomic Armor” in a range of applications.

“Accelerators are important tools for addressing some of the grand challenges faced by humanity,” said Hisato Yamaguchi, member of the Sigma-2 group at the Laboratory. “Those challenges include the quest for sustainable energy, continued scaling of computational power, detection and mitigation of pathogens, and study of the structure and dynamics of the building blocks of life. And those challenges all require the ability to access, observe and control matter on the frontier timescale of electronic motion and the spatial scale of atomic bonds”.