An energy recovery linac (ERL) is a type of linear particle accelerator that provides a beam of electrons used to produce x-rays by synchrotron radiation.
Most scientific literature on x-ray sources uses a closely related term called brilliance, which counts the rate of photons produced, rather than their power.
As a synchrotron light source, the performance of an energy recovery linac falls between a storage ring and a free-electron laser (FEL).
Following its completion we plan to use it for various applications, such as the generation of THz radiation and high power x rays through compton scattering of laser light off its electron beam.
[5] Cornell University, in partnership with Brookhaven National Laboratory, are in the process of constructing CBETA,[6][7] an ERL built using FFAG optics and superconducting RF cavities, targeting up to 100 mA of CW electron beam at up to 150 MeV, as part of a research program for a future electron-ion collider.