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Launching the world's strongest laser at a cost of 320 million euros

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2024-04-03 18:05:29
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   Beijing, April 1st (Reporter Liu Xia) - The world's most powerful laser has been activated recently. On March 31st, the Physicist Organization Network reported that the system can enable laser pulses to reach a peak of 10 terawatts (1 terawatt=100 terawatts=1015 watts) within 1 femtosecond (1000 trillions of a second), which is expected to promote revolutionary progress in multiple fields from medicine to basic physics and space.

   The high-tech center to which this laser belongs is located in Romania, mainly funded by the European Union, with a cost of 320 million euros, utilizing the invention of French scientists such as Gerald Muru.

   Scientists have been committed to manufacturing more powerful lasers. In the mid-1980s, the Muru team invented Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) technology, which can increase the power of lasers while maintaining their intensity. Its working principle is to stretch an ultra short laser pulse in time, amplify it, and then squeeze it together again to create the shortest and strongest laser pulse to date.

   Mulu was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing a method for producing high-intensity, ultra short light pulses. This technology is expected to be widely applied in fields such as nuclear physics and particle physics, medicine, etc. In the medical field, this technology has promoted the development of cataract and refractive surgery.

   Muru pointed out that they will start with a tiny glowing "seed" with minimal energy, which will be magnified millions of times. They will use these ultra-high voltage pulses to generate more compact and cheaper particle accelerators to destroy cancer cells. Other possible applications include processing nuclear waste by reducing its radioactive duration, cleaning up accumulated debris in space, and so on.

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