5 research outputs found

    Recent Advances in Design of Low Cost Film Concentrator and Low Pressure Free Piston Stirling Engines for Solar Power

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    The free piston Stirling-linear alternator was shown to be scalable to power levels of tens of kilowatts in a form which is simple, efficient, long lived and relatively inexpensive. It avoids entirely the vexing problem of high pressure shaft, and its control requirements are not severe nor do they represent a significant threat to durability. Linear alternators have demonstrated high efficiency and moderate weight, and are capable of delivering 3 phase power from single machines without great increases of cost or complexity. There remains no apparent impediments to the commercial exploitation of the free piston engine for solar electric power generation

    Specialised gas targets for controlled injection of electrons into laser-driven wakefields.

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    Laser-driven wakefield acceleration within capillary discharge waveguides has been used to generate high quality electron bunches with GeV scale energies. However, uncontrolled self-injection by wave-breaking of non-linear plasma waves can lead to large fluctuations in energy spread, divergence and charge of the accelerated bunches. Specialised plasma targets with tailored density profiles offer the possibility to overcome these issues by controlling the injection and acceleration process. This requires precise manipulation of the longitudinal density profile. Therefore we developed plasma targets based on a capillary structure with multiple gas in- and outlets operated at steady-state gas flow. Here we give a detailed overview of the target concept and discuss preliminary experimental results for ionisation injection obtained by utilising these targets at the ASTRA laser at Rutherford Appleton Lab
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