A bright green light glows in a giant vacuum chamber inside a laboratory at the University of Michigan in the US. The chamber is the size of two tennis courts with 60 cm concrete walls to prevent radiation from escaping. Here the staff wear masks and head nets so that sensitive electronics are not affected.
This is the Zeus, soon to be America’s most powerful laser. It is currently being used for official experiments for the first time.
It is not like the common lasers that are used in shops. It emits intermittent bursts of light. Each light can reach three petawatts of power, which is 1,000 times more than the electricity used in the entire world.
Such high-energy lasers will help researchers understand quantum laws. With its help, the conditions of astrophysics in space can be understood in the laboratory.
However, Zeus is not the only powerful laser that will make new discoveries possible in the coming years. Ultra-powerful lasers are being developed from Europe to Asia.
“This field is growing rapidly with people coming up with new technologies,” says Carl Kruschelnick, director of ultrafast optical science at the University of Michigan.
UK-developed ‘Vulcan Tonti Tonti’ will become the world’s most powerful laser in 2029. It will produce light that will be billions of trillions of times brighter than the sun’s most intense light.
A single burst of light would produce six times the energy of the entire universe, but would last less than a trillionth of a second.
Like Zeus, on Vulcan Tonti Tonti, scientists from around the world will be invited to conduct experiments to increase understanding of the universe, nuclear energy, and perhaps even create new matter.
A new 20-petawatt Vulcan faucet is now being manufactured at the Central Laser Facility in Oxfordshire, UK, replacing the old Vulcan laser. It is currently the size of two swimming pools used in the Olympics, and each of its one-meter-wide panes weighs one and a half tons. Thick white filaments spread across the room from the laser’s aperture. Vulcan was first developed in 1997, but the new laser will be 100 times brighter.
“What’s impressive is not the power of this laser, but its intensity,” says Rob Clarke, head of the experimental science group at the Central Laser Facility. To understand the magnitude, imagine that there are 5 million 40 watt light bulbs.
Now limit their light to a tenth of a human hair. This would result in a very intense source of light and with its help would be possible all these interesting experiments like electric or magnetic fields.’
With the help of the Vulcan telescope, scientists will be able to create conditions in the distant universe in the laboratory to understand the internal systems of stars or to experiment with how matter changes due to extreme temperatures.
Alex Robinson of the Central Laser Facility says the interest in the field is driven by the desire to explore the universe. “Astrophysics has been essentially limited to observation,” he says.
‘You can see something in a telescope. But then the question arises as to what is going on.
Now, with such a powerful laser, it is hoped that for the first time such experiments will be able to be conducted that will reveal the reality of various scientific theories.
One such puzzle that Oxford is hoping to answer concerns the magnetic field that surrounds stars and planets in the universe.
Alex Robinson says ‘Why is this magnetic field there? This is not entirely clear. And no matter how much one examines, he cannot go into the past and find out how and why they came into existence.
Other experiments include finding the source of visible rays (particles that travel at the speed of light that are high in energy) in the universe, including the formation of jets (particles produced by collisions), the internal conditions of giant planets. can be reviewed.
In addition, researchers will use the Vulcan telescope to study the formation of new particles. Boron nitride is harder than diamond and has been developed in a laboratory under extreme pressure.
“The question is, what else can we produce in this way?” says Robinson. Can they be used in electronics? I do not know. But we know for sure that there is much more to explore.
Nuclear energy
Nuclear energy is also included in the list of these powerful lasers. In July, the energy was generated with the help of a laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. This first experiment led to more energy being produced this year than ever before, raising hopes that current energy sources may be replaced by transparent energy sources.
A 10-petawatt laser in Romania currently ranks as the most powerful laser in the world. For the past year, the laser has been used in collaboration with private companies to develop techniques that could fuel the world’s first commercial nuclear power plant.
With the help of a technique called ‘chirped pulse amplification’, the invention of which was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, this field has gained a new dimension.
Laser ‘Power and Intensity Aren’t Everything’
According to physicists, laser volume is currently limited to bouncing. Cheng Hae-nam is the director of the Laser Science Center in South Korea and his institute holds the record for the highest intensity laser at his institute, which is as powerful as all the light in the world, but is only one micrometer or one-fifth of a human hair. Focused on the part.
Scientists in South Korea are working on laser-assisted proton therapy, a cancer treatment that uses lasers to target tumors in patients.
Such research is taking place in many areas, including in the medical field, reexamining centuries-old concepts related to the universe. Cheng He Nam says he is now working on a higher petawatt laser. If their plan to develop this 25 petawatt laser is successful, it will surpass the Vulcan Tonti Tonti.
However, Clark says that “power and intensity are not everything.” The most important thing right now is what can you do with this laser? And what can be gained from it.
For the scientists working on these lasers, this is the most important thing. “The key is to get the laser right and use it properly,” says Clarke.