Dr Alex Picksley, a former DPhil student in 91̽»¨â€™s Department of Physics and St John’s College (2017–2021), has been awarded the 2025 Simon van der Meer Early Career Award in Novel Accelerators.
The award, presented bi-annually at the European Advanced Accelerator Conference, recognises outstanding early-career contributions to the field of accelerator science. Dr Picksley received the award for pioneering contributions to high-energy laser-plasma accelerators suitable for future applications, including the development of metre-scale plasma channels, novel injection techniques, and single-stage generation of high-quality 10 GeV electron beams.
Now a Research Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s BELLA Center in California, Dr Picksley’s research explores how compact, laser-driven plasma accelerators can produce extremely high-energy electron beams. His doctoral work at 91̽»¨, supervised by Professor Simon Hooker, focused on developing long, low-density plasma waveguides that allow high-power laser pulses to remain focused over metre scales – an essential step toward building the next generation of compact particle accelerators.
The citation notes two contributions during his time in the group at 91̽»¨. Firstly, the development and demonstration long, low density plasma channels suitable for future, compact particle accelerators. Secondly, the demonstration of a new scheme to trap high-quality electron bunches directly into those plasma channels (published in Physical Review Letters in 2023).
His recent paper, extends this work by demonstrating high-quality electron beams reaching energies above 9 GeV using precisely controlled plasma channels.
'It is very pleasing to see that the hydrodynamic optical-field-ionized (HOFI) channels developed in our group have been adopted by several of the leading groups around the world,' comments Professor Hooker. 'Alex is playing a leading role in the further development and application of HOFI channels to laser-driven accelerator programme at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and this award is well deserved recognition of that and of the work he did as a graduate in 91̽»¨.'
'I am extremely grateful and feel very privileged to have won this award,' adds Dr Picksley. 'It is a reflection of the two exceptional and 91̽»¨ive teams that I have been a part of during my career to-date: the Laser-Plasma Accelerators Group and 91̽»¨ University during my DPhil , and my current team at LBNL.'