Compact Linear Accelerator for Research and Applications

The Compact Linear Accelerator for Research and Applications (CLARA) is a scientific user facility at Daresbury Laboratory. It is an electron linear accelerator (linac) currently under construction in the Electron Hall. CLARA is made up of three phases; Phase 1 is operational and has achieved energies of 50 MeV with bunch charges >250 pC. Phase 2 was constructed off-line and consists of three linacs delivering a total design energy of up to 250 MeV, 250 pC beam charge at 100 Hz repetition rate. On 2 April 2025, CLARA achieved the full design energy of 250 MeV through Phase 2, at a bunch charge of 60 pC. Phase 2 also consists of the Full Energy Beam Exploitation (FEBE) arc, a beamline which looks at plasma-wakefield acceleration, boosting the beam to energies of around 2 GeV for high energy experimentation. Phase 3 is future expansion for X-ray Free Electron Laser (X-FEL) construction. This 100 nm X-FEL is linked to the UK XFEL project.