Scientists in Romania successfully created the world’s most powerful laser light emission – one-tenth of the power emanating from the Sun that is received on Earth. A report in Le Monde said where was no blast or any other sound in the room where it room place, just a gray spot on the black screen installed there. The laser had an output if 10 petawatts, or in other words, 10 quadrillion (million billion) watts. Scientists hope this laser will lead to revolutionary advances in every sector where laser is used – from health to space.
The laser, installed at a centre near the Romanian capital Bucharest, is operated by French company Thales. It is located near a nuclear research facility that had long housed a Soviet reactor, as per the outlet.
It was born in the 2000s out of the European Union’s Infrastructure ELI project.
The reason why there was no sound or other effects, like shaking of the building, was that the laser’s peak was for extremely short period: Around 25 femtoseconds (or 25 millionths of a billionth of a second) and across a width of just three micrometres.
Possible applications include treating nuclear waste by reducing the duration of its radioactivity, or cleaning up the debris accumulating out in space, France’s Gerard Mourou, who won the 2018 Nobel Physics Prize, said about the invention.
It took “450 tons of equipment” – carefully installed – to get an “exceptional level of performance”, said Franck Leibreich, laser solution managing director at Thales.
This is a fresh milestone in race to create powerful lasers in which many countries, including France, China and the United States are advancing their own projects.
