Recently, Thales of France announced cooperation with Marvel Fusion, a German nuclear fusion development enterprise, to upgrade the laser system of the European extreme light intensity infrastructure nuclear physics project (ELI-NP) in Romania. With the upgraded laser, Marvel Fusion aims to validate key aspects of its nuclear fusion energy technology.
This will make Marvel Fusion the first private company to establish scientific cooperation on the world's most powerful laser equipment ELI-NP. For Thales, this will strengthen its leadership in the design, development and manufacture of scientific, industrial and space solid-state lasers.
Thales is a global leader in advanced technology. In cooperation with German fusion technology company Marvel Fusion and Romania's ELI-NP (Aurora Infrastructure Nuclear Physics), the three parties will upgrade the laser system and conduct research related to nuclear fusion and future new energy.
During 2023, the three partners plan to improve the parameters of the laser system, such as time laser pulse contrast, so that the laser based fusion process has a unique research capability. As part of the ongoing cooperation with ELI-NP, Thales will provide a new stretching device for stretching laser pulses over time, which can initially reduce the peak power of laser pulses. The stretched, lower strength pulse can be amplified and then compressed again. This process is part of the chirped pulse amplification. Dr. Donna Strickland and Dr. Gerard Mourou won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing this technology. Mourou is a member of Marvel Fusion's Science and Technology Committee.
Marvel Fusion and Thales will start experimental activities in ELI-NP in 2023. The goal of this German company is to verify the key parameters of laser matter interaction between high-intensity laser pulses lasting tens of femtoseconds and nanostructure fuel targets. In the experiment, scientists will study the basic physical process of interaction and its optimization. Subsequently, the research results will be published in peer reviewed journals to promote the development of laser matter interaction.
Nuclear fusion energy has the potential to replace fossil fuels as the world's main energy source in a sustainable way, and is widely considered as the most promising solution to solve climate change and the current energy crisis. Based on the achievements of ELI-NP and the cooperation with Thales, Marvel Fusion aims to demonstrate the core building blocks of its new technology within three years, and is a pioneer in building the first batch of commercial power plants in the 1930s.
Franck Leibreich, Managing Director of Thales Laser Solutions, said: "The fusion technology based on the latest generation of short pulse lasers can enable the EU to guarantee advanced energy systems. With the most powerful laser system ELI-NP in Romania and the leading manufacturer of industrial short pulse lasers, Europe needs to use its excellent knowledge and first-class infrastructure to lead the wave of laser nuclear fusion worldwide."
Thales joined the ELI-NP program in 2013 to develop and build laser systems. In 2019, Thales completed the construction and sent 10 petawatt laser pulses to the facility for the first time. ELI-NP is the world's most powerful short pulse laser system, with the peak power of each laser beam reaching 10 petawatts. In this facility, scientists study fields ranging from laser based nuclear physics to ion therapy for cancer treatment to astrophysical processes.
"For the laser system, the 10 watt laser system is an amazing power level. The experiment at ELI-NP means that we have now entered a stage of technical verification. At this stage, we can draw direct physical conclusions about the scalable design of the target structure and the laser target interaction." said Dr. George Korn, chief technology officer of Marvel Fusion and former scientific director of ELI.
Dr. Calin Alexandru Ur, director of ELI-NP, said: "ELI-NP has the unique ability to provide 10 PW laser beams worldwide, which is expected to bring significant progress to basic science and make important breakthroughs in the application of major social interests." ELI-NP's mission is to act as a catalyst to connect the research community with the academic and industrial communities, and become a hot spot in science, innovation and development.
Source: OFweek Laser Network
