CSU's Advanced Lasers and Extreme Photonics Center and ATLAS Facility: Ultra-Intense Lasers for Science and Technology
February 13, 2025
Jorge Rocca
Hosted by Dave Randall
Abstract
Ultra-intense lasers can heat matter to reach conditions found at the center of stars, and drive nuclear fusion in the laboratory. This talk will review the applications of ultra-intense lasers in science and technology and the contributions CSU is making in this area.CSU has a long history in the evelopment and application of advanced lasers. In 2017 it commissioned ALEPH, one of the most powerful ultrashort pulse lasers in the world, developed in house. Since 2018 CSU is a very active node of LaserNet US, a network of the most powerful lasers in North America funded by DOE to provide access to scientist and engineers nation-wide and internationally to some of the most powerful lasers to advance science and assist in the development of advanced technologies. A promising application of high power lasers is the generation of energy by inertially confined nuclear fusion. Presently the ALEPH Center at CSU leads one of DOE’s three new Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) hubs in the nation. These IFE hub, that combine universities, national laboratories and
private industry, were created by the US Department of Energy (US DOE) in 2023 to assist in making laser fusion a realty as a source of practically unlimited energy.
CSU has announced a $150 M public-private partnership with Marvel Fusion to create a new Center facility, ATLAS. This facility will allow CSU , in collaboration private industry and
the Federal government, to build and operate a cluster of three ultra-intense lasers that will be unique in the world. Plans for this facility and the science that it will enabled will be
reviewed.