Dolni Brezany, Central Bohemia, July 2 (CTK) – The operation of the new petawatt laser system L3-HAPLS, developed in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA, was launched in the ELI Beamlines research centre on Monday.
ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) Beamlines is part of the Institute of Physics of the Czech Science Academy. At the same time, it is one of the three research centres of the ELI Project. ELI Nuclear Physics in Romania and ELI APLS in Hungary are the two other facilities.
Representatives of Lawrence Livermore, Bill Goldstein and Constantin Haefner, on Monday symbolically gave the laser system to ELI Beamlines head Michael Prouza and Czech Science Academy President Eva Zazimalova.
Zazimalova said the project has been more or less completed with respect to technology and the research community may start enjoying it.
Zazimalova said the laser centre will be used not only by physicists but also biochemists and other experts.
Researchers believe the L3-HAPLS system will open a new area of research, including new imaging methods in medicine, research of strength of materials for space flights or thorough check of metal structures like bridges.
Czech Deputy Education Minister for Research, Petr Dolecek, recalled that ELI Beamlines would not have been built without the support from the European Commission, especially of European Commissioner for Science, Research and Innovations Carlos Moedas.
ELI Delivery Consortium director Carlo Rizzuto said Europe supported the network of these centres also because it wanted to return Central Europe in the game after the developments following World War Two.
Rizzuto said the ELI Project is important not only for Europe but also for the whole world.
A number of research institutions from the USA, Sweden, France, Germany, Poland and other countries showed interest in the experiments of the laser.
ELI Beamlines plans to have four laser systems. The first system is being tested and the second is now used in a reduced form.
Another laser is being developed now. “It will undergo final tests in Texas next week, then it will be packed in boxes and transported to our place,” Prouza said.
“It is the technologically far most advanced laser of its kind,” Bedrich Rus, who heads laser technologies in ELI Beamlines, told CTK about L3-HAPLS.
Rus said its output can be imagined as 160 times the installed output of all power plants in the world. He said the laser generates 10 pulses a second. One femtosecond pulse is a beam long about one tenth the width of a human hair.
Rus said this laser system may contribute to the development of new methods in the treatment of malignant tumours, examination of matter in huge planets like Uranus or of how a supernova evolves after the explosion or what are the qualities of matter in a collapsing star.
