Route des lasers, The place to be

Route des Lasers seeking rapprochement with ELI

17th May, 2010, International actions.

New links are being established in Aquitaine between Laser Mégajoule, HIPER and ELI, three leading laser facilities of the 21st century. Discussions have just begun with the Czech representatives of the ELI project.
On April 13, 2010, Aquitaine received a Czech delegation in the context of the 2010 France-Czech Republic technology days created by CzechInvest to promote Czech research and development abroad. This year, these discussion days were organized around the ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) project. In the 2013/2015 timeframe, this project, bringing together 13 European countries, should lead to the construction of an ultra-powerful laser unlike any other existing in the world, with power crests in the exawatt range, thus opening the pathway to a revolution in physics.

In 2009, the decision was made to share installation of the ELI infrastructures among three countries: Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. Consequently, in order to bring together the best skills in Europe, the Czech Republic will issue invitations to tender amounting to €160 million.
Following a meeting in Paris, a working meeting at CCIB on April 13 gave certain companies of the Route des Lasers closer a clearer idea of how they could participate in the ELI project.

After a visit to ALPhANOV, Florian Gliksohn of the Czech Academy of Sciences's Institute of Physics and Czech Director of ELI, presented this major project and the work of his institute. Two Czech companies also outlined their activities and involvement in ELI: Crytur (manufacturer of crystals for the laser) and Vaakum Praha (vacuum technologies), along with a representative of the Turnov Workshop on Optic Development (Institute of Plasma Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences). Following a brief presentation of the Route des Lasers cluster, Amplitude Systèmes, Imagine Optics, SEIV Aquitaine, ALPhANOV and CELIA presented their specialties related to the needs of the ELI project. By demonstrating the excellence of Czech and Aquitaine know-how, these presentations led to a series of informal discussions enabling the companies to sketch out future partnerships. The afternoon was devoted to a tour of the Laser Mégajoule.
In the context of this international partnership approach, a meeting planned for April 20 with the leaders of European HiPER project was postponed until mid-May following recent air traffic difficulties. The purpose of HiPER is to demonstrate the potential of laser inertial confinement fusion to produce energy. At that time the role which Aquitaine might play in this project will be discussed, making the most of the know-how developed in the context of the PETAL project, involving a petawatt laser being built in Aquitaine.

The 2010 Franco-Czech technological days were organized in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Paris, the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Science, the Franco-Czech Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Bordeaux and the Route des Lasers Competitiveness Cluster.


LANDMARKS

ELI, one of three ?giant lasers? currently being built, along with HIPER and the LMJ
This unique key scientific tool, representing an estimated investment of €400 million, focuses the know-how of 300 scientists from 50 laboratories in 13 European countries. Its purpose is to provide scientists, engineers and medical doctors with a laser capable of the highest intensities, thanks to ultra short impulsions.
This installation, intended to serve European needs, represents a first: it will employ the world's most powerful laser and will be able to provide extremely brief impulsions measuring 100,000 times the energy produced by all the power-plants in the world.

Fields of study of ELI and its applications
ELI seeks to realize a long-standing ambition shared by physicists since the first functional laser was developed in 1960. ELI may be powerful enough to stimulate a vacuum to the point of decomposition into elemental particles and anti-particles thanks to its tremendous intensities. The extremely short duration of these impulsions makes possible real-time observations of movements or extremely brief reactions measured in attoseconds (10 -18 of a second) or even in zeptoseconds (10 -21 of a second). These ultra-intense laser impulsions could also reduce the distances needed by particle accelerators to produce a beam of particles or radiation by a factor of 1000 to 10,000. ELI will open up a new branch of optics called ultra-relativistic optics, leading to ramifications in particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics and cosmology.
Applications related to extreme light sources are particularly numerous in the fields of health, biology, science of materials, X-rays and X-ray therapy.

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