They launched a superpowered laser near Prague. It has an output of one million billion watts and cost over a billion – ČT24 – Czech Television
Researchers promise to open up a new area of research. These include, for example, new imaging methods in medicine, research into the durability of materials for spaceflight, or in-depth inspection of metal and other structures, such as bridges.
“It is by far the most advanced laser of its kind. It will bring scientific curiosities or certain research topics into real life and new applications, such as the development of new cancer treatments or the study of matter in giant planets like Uranus, how a supernova develops after an explosion, or what properties the mass of a collapsing star has, “he said. head of laser technologies ELI Beamlines Bedřich Rus.
The instantaneous power of one light pulse of the L3 laser will be 1 petawatt – a million times more than the power of one Temelín reactor. the pulse of the L3 laser will be approximately 27 femtoseconds, which is the time it takes for light to travel a distance of approximately one tenth of the thickness of a human hair.
According to Petr Doleček, Deputy Minister of Education for Higher Education and Research, the center was not established without the support of the European Commission and especially Commissioner for Science Carlos Moedas. According to the chairwoman of the Academy of Sciences, Eva Zažímalová, the project is now more or less technically complete and the scientific community will be able to start using it. According to her, it will serve not only physicists, but also biochemists and other experts.
According to Carl Rizzut, director of the ELI consortium, Europe has supported the network of these centers to help Central Europe “get back in the game” after the events of World War II. According to him, this is succeeding, the ELI project is important not only for Europe, but for the whole world.
The center functions as a research infrastructure, it belongs to the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences. It is also part of a world-class European network with other centers in Romania and Hungary.
An Attosecond Facility is being built in Hungary to study the physics of ultrashort optical pulses in the order of attoseconds (extremely short period of time, light travels the distance between two hydrogen atoms), and the Romanian center focuses on photonuclear physics.
All lasers are heading to Prague
ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) Beamlines is the most expensive science center funded by European grants and should be the most modern laser center in Europe. In total, it will cost about 7.5 billion crowns, of which 85 percent will be paid by the EU.
2.3 billion crowns are earmarked for construction and other material things, and 4.2 billion crowns for lasers and experiments. So far, approximately 90 percent of the budget (6.7 billion crowns) has been used.
We know what’s going on in the heart of the stars
Laser technology in the center, which opened in autumn 2015, but is still waiting for the installation of some devices, will have unique parameters in terms of pulse power and the number of installed lasers.
In its basic research, scientists will, for the first time, study in laboratories, for example, extreme physical phenomena as a simulation of history inside stars. The facility will also be able to be used for research that may lead to the search for new cancer treatments and medical imaging and diagnostics.
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Four high-performance lasers are to become the basis of ELI Beamlines. The weakest is one of the first L1, scheduled for trial this year, and now inaugurated L3, formerly called Lucifer (Light Bearer), who arrived from the USA last June and has since gradually installed it in Dolní Břežany. The third laser system is still in the laboratories of the Institute of Physics in Prague and the last L4 (named Krakatit) is being developed in Texas and is due to arrive at ELI Beamlines this year.
ELI Beamlines is to serve scientists not only from the Czech Republic, but also from Europe and thus from all over the world. That is also why Dolní Břežany was chosen, a place easily accessible from Prague and easily accessible from the airport, for example.
The beginnings of the project date back to 2005, but before construction began it faced problems. Among other things, there were problems with the purchase of land and also the unsatisfactory amendment to the Public Procurement Act, which orders the cancellation of the tender in the event of a single company. This is because more than one company is often unable to deliver unique technologies.
Not only ELI, but also…
There is another laser center in the neighborhood Hi LASE, which is also a project of the Institute of Physics of the ASCR. While ELI Beamlines profile itself as a center of basic research, HiLASE is closer to industrial applications.
The Biocev biomedical center is located in nearby Vesec. An innovation center was opened in neighboring Zlatníky InnoCrystal focused on biotechnology projects.