ALICE (accelerator)

Accelerators and Lasers In Combined Experiments (ALICE), or Energy Recovery Linac Prototype (ERLP) was a 35MeV energy recovery linac test facility at Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, England. The project was originally conceived as a test bed for the 4th Generation Light Source (4GLS), and consisted of:

A 350keV photoinjector laser. An 8.35MeV superconducting RF booster linac. A 35MeV superconducting RF main linac in which energy is recovered from used electron bunches and given to new bunches. An infrared free electron laser (FEL), using a permanent magnet undulator on permanent loan from Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF). An ERL transport system that transported electron bunches through the FEL and back to the linac with the correct RF phase to decelerate them and thereby to recover energy from them. The ALICE accelerator was an Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) that incorporated all the features of the 4th generation light source albeit at smaller scale. An ERL is not restricted by the dynamic properties of storage rings and, therefore, can attain an unprecedented electron beam brightness limited only by the electron gun. Energy recovery allows also a significant increase in an average power of the light sources (without building a dedicated power station nearby). The ability to produce ultra-short electron bunches well below 1ps and an availability of several light sources of different "colour" open up numerous possibilities for conducting investigations of fast processes on a femtosecond scale in molecular and solid state physics to name but a few. The ALICE project was extended by addition of a 19-cavity accelerating Non-Scaling FFAG ring, known as the EMMA project. Construction of the EMMA machine began in September 2009. On March 31, 2011, full ring circumnavigation was completed to establish proof of principle. By May 2016, decommissioning of both EMMA and ALICE started, and in 2019 the process was completed, with most components being donated to other facilities.