Subrelativistic Alternating Phase Focusing Dielectric Laser Accelerators.

We demonstrate a silicon-based electron accelerator that uses laser optical near fields to both accelerate and confine electrons over extended distances. Two dielectric laser accelerator (DLA) designs were tested, each consisting of two arrays of silicon pillars pumped symmetrically by pulse front tilted laser beams, designed for average acceleration gradients 35 and 50 MeV/m, respectively. The DLAs are designed to act as alternating phase focusing (APF) lattices, where electrons, depending on the electron-laser interaction phase, will alternate between opposing longitudinal and transverse focusing and defocusing forces. By incorporating fractional period drift sections that alter the synchronous phase between ±60° off crest, electrons captured in the designed acceleration bucket experience half the peak gradient as average gradient while also experiencing strong confinement forces that enable long interaction lengths. We demonstrate APF accelerators with interaction lengths up to 708 µm and energy gains up to 23.7±1.07 keV FWHM, a 25% increase from starting energy, demonstrating the ability to achieve substantial energy gains with subrelativistic DLA.

Electron Pulse Compression with Optical Beat Note.

Compressing electron pulses is important in many applications of electron beam systems. In this study, we propose to use optical beat notes to compress electron pulses. The beat frequency is chosen to match the initial electron pulse duration, which enables the compression of electron pulses with a wide range of durations. This functionality extends the optical control of electron beams, which is important in compact electron beam systems such as dielectric laser accelerators. We also find that the dominant frequency of the electron charge density changes continuously along its drift trajectory, which may open up new opportunities in coherent interaction between free electrons and quantum or classical systems.

Laser-Driven Electron Lensing in Silicon Microstructures.

We demonstrate a laser-driven, tunable electron lens fabricated in monolithic silicon. The lens consists of an array of silicon pillars pumped symmetrically by two 300 fs, 1.95 µm wavelength, nJ-class laser pulses from an optical parametric amplifier. The optical near field of the pillar structure focuses electrons in the plane perpendicular to the pillar axes. With 100±10 MV/m incident laser fields, the lens focal length is measured to be 50±4 µm, which corresponds to an equivalent quadrupole focusing gradient B^{'} of 1.4±0.1 MT/m. By varying the incident laser field strength, the lens can be tuned from a 21±2 µm focal length (B^{'}>3.3 MT/m) to focal lengths on the centimeter scale.

Net Acceleration and Direct Measurement of Attosecond Electron Pulses in a Silicon Dielectric Laser Accelerator.

Net acceleration of attosecond-scale electron pulses is critical to the development of on-chip accelerators. We demonstrate a silicon-based laser-driven two-stage accelerator as an injector stage prototype for a Dielectric Laser Accelerator (DLA). The first stage converts a 57-keV (500±100)-fs (FWHM) electron pulse into a pulse train of 700±200 as (FWHM) microbunches. The second stage harnesses the tunability of dual-drive DLA to perform both a net acceleration and a streaking measurement. In the acceleration mode, the second stage increases the net energy of the electron pulse by 200 eV over 12.25 µm. In the deflection mode, the microbunch temporal profile is analyzed by a direct streaking measurement with 200 as resolution. This work provides a demonstration of a novel, on-chip method to access the attosecond regime, opening new paths towards attosecond science using DLA.

Phase-dependent laser acceleration of electrons with symmetrically driven silicon dual pillar gratings.

We present the demonstration of phase-dependent laser acceleration and deflection of electrons using a symmetrically driven silicon dual pillar grating structure. We show that exciting an evanescent inverse Smith-Purcell mode on each side of a dual pillar grating can produce hyperbolic cosine acceleration and hyperbolic sine deflection modes, depending on the relative excitation phase of each side. Our devices accelerate sub-relativistic 99.0 keV kinetic energy electrons by 3.0 keV over a 15 µm distance with accelerating gradients of 200 MeV/m with 40 nJ, 300 fs, 1940 nm pulses from an optical parametric amplifier. These results represent a significant step towards making practical dielectric laser accelerators for ultrafast, medical, and high-energy applications.

Yeast Coq9 controls deamination of coenzyme Q intermediates that derive from para-aminobenzoic acid.

Coq9 is a polypeptide subunit in a mitochondrial multi-subunit complex, termed the CoQ-synthome, required for biosynthesis of coenzyme Q (ubiquinone or Q). Deletion of COQ9 results in dissociation of the CoQ-synthome, but over-expression of Coq8 putative kinase stabilizes the CoQ-synthome in the coq9 null mutant and leads to the accumulation of two nitrogen-containing Q intermediates, imino-demethoxy-Q6 (IDMQ6) and 3-hexaprenyl-4-aminophenol (4-AP) when para-aminobenzoic acid (pABA) is provided as a ring precursor. To investigate whether Coq9 is responsible for deamination steps in Q biosynthesis, we utilized the yeast coq5-5 point mutant. The yeast coq5-5 point mutant is defective in the C-methyltransferase step of Q biosynthesis but retains normal steady-state levels of the Coq5 polypeptide. Here, we show that when high amounts of 13C6-pABA are provided, the coq5-5 mutant accumulates both 13C6-imino-demethyl-demethoxy-Q6 (13C6-IDDMQ6) and 13C6-demethyl-demethoxy-Q6 (13C6-DDMQ6). Deletion of COQ9 in the yeast coq5-5 mutant along with Coq8 over-expression and 13C6- pABA labeling leads to the absence of 13C6-DDMQ6, and the nitrogen-containing intermediates 13C6-4-AP and 13C6-IDDMQ6 persist. We describe a coq9 temperature-sensitive mutant and show that at the non-permissive temperature, steady-state polypeptide levels of Coq9-ts19 increased, while Coq4, Coq5, Coq6, and Coq7 decreased. The coq9-ts19 mutant had decreased Q6 content and increased levels of nitrogen-containing intermediates. These findings identify Coq9 as a multi-functional protein that is required for the function of Coq6 and Coq7 hydroxylases, for removal of the nitrogen substituent from pABA-derived Q intermediates, and is an essential component of the CoQ synthome.

On-chip integrated laser-driven particle accelerator.

Particle accelerators represent an indispensable tool in science and industry. However, the size and cost of conventional radio-frequency accelerators limit the utility and reach of this technology. Dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) provide a compact and cost-effective solution to this problem by driving accelerator nanostructures with visible or near-infrared pulsed lasers, resulting in a 104 reduction of scale. Current implementations of DLAs rely on free-space lasers directly incident on the accelerating structures, limiting the scalability and integrability of this technology. We present an experimental demonstration of a waveguide-integrated DLA that was designed using a photonic inverse-design approach. By comparing the measured electron energy spectra with particle-tracking simulations, we infer a maximum energy gain of 0.915 kilo-electron volts over 30 micrometers, corresponding to an acceleration gradient of 30.5 mega-electron volts per meter. On-chip acceleration provides the possibility for a completely integrated mega-electron volt-scale DLA.

Human COQ9 Rescues a coq9 Yeast Mutant by Enhancing Coenzyme Q Biosynthesis from 4-Hydroxybenzoic Acid and Stabilizing the CoQ-Synthome.

Coq9 is required for the stability of a mitochondrial multi-subunit complex, termed the CoQ-synthome, and the deamination step of Q intermediates that derive from para-aminobenzoic acid (pABA) in yeast. In human, mutations in the COQ9 gene cause neonatal-onset primary Q10 deficiency. In this study, we determined whether expression of human COQ9 could complement yeast coq9 point or null mutants. We found that expression of human COQ9 rescues the growth of the temperature-sensitive yeast mutant, coq9-ts19, on a non-fermentable carbon source and increases the content of Q6, by enhancing Q biosynthesis from 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (4HB). To study the mechanism for the rescue by human COQ9, we determined the steady-state levels of yeast Coq polypeptides in the mitochondria of the temperature-sensitive yeast coq9 mutant expressing human COQ9. We show that the expression of human COQ9 significantly increased steady-state levels of yeast Coq4, Coq6, Coq7, and Coq9 at permissive temperature. Human COQ9 polypeptide levels persisted at non-permissive temperature. A small amount of the human COQ9 co-purified with tagged Coq6, Coq6-CNAP, indicating that human COQ9 interacts with the yeast Q-biosynthetic complex. These findings suggest that human COQ9 rescues the yeast coq9 temperature-sensitive mutant by stabilizing the CoQ-synthome and increasing Q biosynthesis from 4HB. This finding provides a powerful approach to studying the function of human COQ9 using yeast as a model.