Using ultraintense and ultrashort lasers, researchers from the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), obtained antimatter, i.e., ultrafast positron beams. 

Related results were published in Physics of Plasmas on March 7, 2016. 

The researchers solved the noise problem caused by gamma rays and observed positrons by using the different deflection characteristics of positrons and electrons in the magnetic field. 

Positrons are promising in the fields of nondestructive probing of materials, laser-driven electron-positron colliders, and cancer diagnosis. The positron beam is pulsed with an ultrashort duration of tens of femtoseconds, thus allowing specific studies of fast kinetics in millimeter-thick materials with a high time resolution.