The capture of a twisted electron from an ion results in the excitation of the nucleus and the consequent emission of a gamma ray. Credit: F. Carbone (EPFL)
EPFL's Laboratory for Ultrafast Microscopy and Electron Scattering has received a grant from Google to use shaped electron beams in the cutting-edge field of Nuclear Excitation by Electron Capture (NEEC). Dr Fabrizio Carbone's Laboratory for Ultrafast Microscopy and Electron Scattering (LUMES) today announced that Google has funded a 4-year research project in the lab. The project aims to exploit new methods recently developed at LUMES (see References below) to spatio-temporally manipulate the wavefunction of fundamental particles as a means of precisely effecting changes in an atom's nucleus via Nuclear Excitation by Electron Capture (NEEC) . The world needs more climate solution options in the form of cheaper clean energy. Dr Ross Koningstein at Google has been looking for ways to accelerate nuclear energy research and development of new scientific breakthroughs that could inform a path to clean and potentially very compact atomic energy sources without harmful products, a real game changer. In 2018, Carbone asked if ultrashort electron flashes can help harvest nuclear energy , which caught Koningstein's attention of. "The field of NEEC is at a nascent stage, with the first claimed experimental observation of NEEC by Chiara et al occurring only last year ( Nature paper ), and this has generated interest and discussions" says Koningstein.
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