Researchers from University of Texas have developed a laser that can produce a power of more than one petawatt. This laser is based on the original petawatt laser which was built at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in Livermore, CA in 1999.

The Texas Petawatt Laser is the most powerful operating laser in the world and Todd Ditmire from the Texas Center for High Intensity Laser Science, wanted to give a special praise to Ed Moses, LLNL Principal Associate Director, but he also mentioned the participation of some members from the National Ignition Facility and Photon Science Principal Directorate.

This breakthrough was achieved thanks to the amplification of a laser pulse to the energy of 190 joules which eventually is compressed to a duration of less than 170 femtoseconds (femtosecond = the quadrilionth of a second). This technique is called chirped pulse amplification and it’s used by the most powerful lasers in the world, like the Titan laser at LLNL.

This technique was used also by NOVA laser, but for Texas’ Laser it allows a compression of the laser pulses that is shorter than NOVA’s.

The Texas Petawatt Laser is going to be employed for studies of the high-energy density plasmas and for studying astrophysical phenomenons like the explosion of supernovas and the formation of galactic jets.

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