South Korean scientists have created the world’s most powerful laser installation. The intensity of the pulses of the installation is equal to the entire light of the Sun falling on the Earth, focused into a beam with a diameter of 10 microns. The colossal energy of pulses on a micrometer target will make it possible to carry out experiments that will help to penetrate into the essence of the interaction of light and matter, which will open the way for new directions in fundamental physics. Scientific discoveries will flow like a river.

For many years in a row, the most powerful pulsed laser was the installation in the USA – the titanium-sapphire laser HERCULES at the University of Michigan. At its peak, “Hercules” developed 10²² Watts per cm²… Researchers at the Center for Relativistic Laser Science of South Korea (CoReLS) were able to surpass this achievement by an order of magnitude and reported the creation of a pulsed laser with a power of 10²³ Watts per cm².

The duration of the pulses of such lasers is very, very short – only a few femtoseconds, and the dimensions of the target are 50 times less than the diameter of a human hair and are 1,1 microns.

To achieve a record intensity, it was necessary to complicate the optical focusing system to the limit and very accurately control the wavefront of the pulses. For example, the so-called deforming mirrors were used as mirrors, which compensated for the slightest distortions when focusing pulses.

“This high-intensity laser will enable us in the laboratory to investigate astrophysical phenomena such as electron-photon and photon-photon scattering, Said Chang Hee Nam, director of CoReLS and professor at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. “We can use it to experimentally test and gain access to theoretical ideas, some of which were first proposed nearly a century ago.”

It is interesting to note that such laser systems can be used to treat cancer patients. A laser pulse of enormous intensity knocks out protons from the target, which are used for radiation therapy.