The US has a new most powerful laser hitting 2 petawatts

Summary

Karl Krushelnick See full bio Director of the Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science Henry J Gomberg Collegiate Professor of Engineering Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences Anatoly Maksimchuk See full bio Research Scientist in Electrical and Computer Engineering John Nees See full bio Research Scientist in Electrical and Computer Engineering Franko Bayer See full bio Project Manager for Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort Pulse Laser System (ZEUS) The ZEUS laser facility at the University of Michigan has roughly doubled the peak power of any other laser in the U.S. with its first official experiment at 2 petawatts (2 quadrillion watts). At more than 100 times the global electricity power output, this huge power lasts only for the brief duration of its laser pulse—just 25 quintillionths of a second long. “This milestone marks the beginning of experiments that move into unexplored territory for American high field science,” said Karl Krushelnick, director of the Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, which houses ZEUS. Research at ZEUS will have applications in medicine, national security, materials science and astrophysics, in addition to plasma science and quantum physics. Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, ZEUS is a user facility—meaning that research teams from all over the country and internationally can submit experiment proposals that go through an independent selection process. “One of the great things about ZEUS is it’s not just one big laser hammer, but you can split the light into multiple beams,” said Franklin Dollar, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, whose team is running the first user experiment at 2 petawatts. “Having a national resource like this, which awards time to users whose experimental concepts are most promising for advancing scientific priorities, is really bringing high-intensity laser science back to the U.S.” Dollar’s team and the ZEUS tea...