Developing more efficient, compact and reliable accelerator systems
An early-career award winner describes how her research aligns with Argonne’s strategic mission
Each year, the Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE) directorate at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory recognizes exceptional early-career researchers breaking into their fields with the PSE Early Investigator Named Awards. In 2025, the lab announced that six awardees would be receiving support in the form of funding and mentorship to conduct groundbreaking research aligned with Argonne’s strategic mission.
One member of the 2025 cohort is Gongxiaohui Chen, an assistant physicist in the accelerator physics group within the High Energy Physics (HEP) division at Argonne. Chen, who carries out research to enable the next generation of particle accelerators, will be working under the guidance of John Power, a group leader in HEP, on a proposal titled, “Developing the Building Blocks for an Energy-Frontier Collider Based on Short-Pulse Structure Wakefield Acceleration.” Wakefield acceleration is an approach that could lead to a new generation of particle accelerators that achieve higher-energy beams than today’s conventional linear accelerators, but with a smaller physical footprint.
“I was drawn to accelerator physics by the unique combination of fundamental physics, advanced engineering and real-world impact.” — Gongxiaohui Chen, Argonne assistant physicist
Here, Chen discusses her research and other work she supports at Argonne.
Q: What role do you play at the lab?
A: I am an assistant physicist at the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator facility (AWA) in the HEP division.
Q: What initiatives or projects are you most excited about being involved in at Argonne?
A: I have been involved in a wide range of projects, spanning beam dynamics simulations, hands-on beam operations and tuning and radio-frequency (RF) structure design. I particularly enjoy projects that connect detailed simulations with real experimental measurements, allowing rapid feedback between design and performance.
Q: Can you talk a bit about the research you’re conducting for your proposal for which you received the 2025 PSE Early Investigator Named Award?
A: My proposal focuses on developing the building blocks for an energy-frontier collider based on short-pulse structure wakefield acceleration.
Conventional radio-frequency accelerators are fundamentally limited by RF breakdown, pulsed heating and surface damage, which restrict practical accelerating gradients to around 100 MV/m. Recent experiments at Argonne, however, have demonstrated that operating with ultra-short RF pulses on the order of ten nanoseconds can dramatically suppress breakdown formation, enabling accelerating fields exceeding 400 MV/m with relatively low breakdown rate.
Building on these breakthroughs, my proposal aims to develop a fully featured accelerator module powered by beam-driven, short-pulse RF using a Two-Beam Acceleration approach. In this concept, a high-charge drive beam passes through a Power Extraction and Transfer Structure, generating gigawatt-level RF pulses that directly power the accelerating structure in the main beamline. One of the major challenges is designing an accelerator structure that simultaneously supports rapid RF filling for short pulses while maintaining high shunt impedance to efficiently accelerate the main beam and boost the beam energy.
To address this, I am developing a novel hybrid accelerating structure that combines backward-wave and forward-wave filling sub-sections fed by a middle coupler. This configuration effectively doubles the usable acceleration length without increasing RF pulse duration, while optimizing key performance metrics including group velocity, shunt impedance, wakefield control and scalability. Extensive electromagnetic simulations, multi-objective optimization and beam dynamics studies are being used to refine the geometry and validate performance.
Q: What do you like most about your job?
A: Working in a small, highly collaborative group allows me to be involved in every stage of accelerator development, from concept and simulation to fabrication, beam commissioning and data analysis. This hands-on environment is incredibly rewarding and provides a complete picture of how advanced accelerator systems are built and operated.
Q: How does your work support the lab’s mission?
A: My research supports Argonne’s mission through the development of innovative accelerator technologies. By improving high-gradient acceleration techniques, our work contributes to ongoing efforts within the accelerator physics community to enable more efficient, compact and reliable accelerator systems.
Q: What other sorts of career or professional development opportunities has Argonne provided?
A: Argonne has provided strong mentorship, opportunities to lead independent research projects, involvement in large collaborative efforts, exposure to proposal development and experimental leadership, all of which have been invaluable for my professional growth.
Q: What encouraged you to get involved in the scientific discipline you are in?
A: I was drawn to accelerator physics by the unique combination of fundamental physics, advanced engineering and real-world impact.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.