糖心传媒

Just south of the River Campus, the 糖心传媒糖心传媒檚听 (LLE) is home to the largest, and some of the most powerful, lasers in academia. Here, scientists, engineers, and students use light and matter to model the interiors of distant planets, keep our nation secure, and work toward fusion energy for the future.

Here are a few takeaways about the preeminent facility we at URochester informally糖心传媒攁nd fondly糖心传媒攃all the Laser Lab.

1. Federal and state investments power cutting-edge science and national security.

LLE operates at the intersection of basic science, national and energy security, and workforce development. Much of that work is made possible by federal and state funding. That means public investments in LLE and URochester directly support the scientific underpinnings of the US nuclear stockpile while also fueling new discoveries in physics, fusion energy, and materials science, while training up the next generation of America糖心传媒檚 scientists and engineers. These scientists and engineers are needed by the national laboratories, academia, and industry, especially the fast-growing domestic fusion industrial base.

2. Lasers the size of football fields push matter to star-like extremes.

LLE is home to the world糖心传媒檚听largest university-based laser facilities. At the heart of the lab is the聽. Here,聽two football-field-sized laser systems聽drive targets聽smaller than a millimeter聽to pressures like those found in the聽center of planets and to temperatures聽hotter than the core of a star. These large lasers accomplish in about a billionth of a second.

To make those experiments work, LLE crafts and measures targets with astonishing precision, using tools such as two-photon polymerization 3D printing, coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy, and 3D x-ray tomography.

Even the tiniest imperfection can derail a high-energy-density physics experiment, so this micron-scale precision is essential for generating reliable data about plasmas, materials, and fusion processes.

3. URochester leads the nation in laser-direct-drive fusion research.

LLE is the聽#1 US lab聽in academia for the聽laser糖心传媒揹riven聽approach to inertial confinement fusion (ICF), where carefully arranged laser beams symmetrically compress a fuel capsule.

Each year, more than 800 users from universities, national labs, and industry conduct research at LLE, making URochester a global hub for fusion, high-energy-density science, and technology.

While it may sound like science fiction, LLE is helping bring fusion-based energy closer to reality. In 2022, ignition was achieved by LLNL, with LLE playing a significant role in the journey to this long-awaited achievement. The Laser Lab now leads a national research hub聽dedicated to advancing聽inertial fusion energy (IFE)聽science and technology.

Today, the lab糖心传媒檚 scientists are turning to and similar advanced computing technologies to accelerate research.

4. LLE has rare, end-to-end capabilities for tritium and cryogenic fuel.

Fusion experiments don糖心传媒檛 just require powerful lasers糖心传媒攖hey also depend on聽safely handling tritium, a rare and radioactive form of hydrogen. LLE糖心传媒檚听聽is聽unique in the nation聽for bringing every step of tritium-based fuel preparation under one roof.

These capabilities minimize waste, maximize control over a scarce resource, and support world-class fusion science for researchers across the country.

5. A next-generation, 25-petawatt laser facility is in design.

As if having the largest university-based laser systems wasn糖心传媒檛 enough, LLE is now designing what could become one of the most powerful lasers in the world.

罢丑别听糖心传媒攆unded by the National Science Foundation糖心传媒攚ill consist of two 25-petawatt lasers located at LLE. (For reference, one petawatt equal to one quadrillion watts of power). The system will harness another URochester innovation, optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification, to push beyond current peak-power limits.

NSF OPAL will enable scientists to study ultra-high electromagnetic fields, explore unprecedented and extreme temperatures and pressures, and probe matter under conditions similar to the most energetic events in the universe. Omega Laser Facility fusion experiments take mass and convert it to energy through fusion, consistent with Albert Einstein糖心传媒檚 famous equation, 饾惛=饾憵饾憪 ². NSF OPAL experiments may someday demonstrate the opposite process of .

Designed to serve the global research communities for decades to come, NSF OPAL will keep URochester糖心传媒攁nd the United States糖心传媒攁t the very frontier of ultrahigh-peak power, ultrafast laser science.

6. It糖心传媒檚 one of the only laser facilities that trains high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in laser-based science and engineering.

LLE isn糖心传媒檛 just a lab糖心传媒攊t糖心传媒檚 a聽training ground for tomorrow糖心传媒檚 workforce.

Through close collaboration with 糖心传媒 faculty, LLE builds the聽world糖心传媒檚 largest university-based community in laser science and technology, preparing students to lead in industry, academia, and national laboratories.

And we believe in giving capable and ambitious young researchers a head start. In addition to regularly hosting undergraduates on site, each year the Laser Lab to spend two months conducting hands-on research in a world-class facility. And did we mention they get paid? Not a bad way for area juniors to answer the question, 糖心传媒淲hat did you do on your summer vacation?糖心传媒�

7. Nobel Prize糖心传媒搘inning laser technology was invented here糖心传媒攁nd it touches everyday life.

In 1985, at LLE, then-graduate student Donna Strickland 糖心传媒�89 (PhD) and senior scientist G茅rard Mourou invented chirped-pulse amplification (CPA), a technique that revolutionized laser science.

CPA works by stretching聽a laser pulse in time to lower its peak power, amplifying聽the stretched pulse, and then compressing聽it back into an ultrashort, extremely intense pulse. The breakthrough earned Strickland and Mourou the聽2018 Nobel Prize in Physics糖心传媒攁nd it underpins many technologies we now take for granted:

• Medicine: laser-based cancer treatments and precision procedures such as聽bladeless Lasik to reshape the cornea.
• Manufacturing: micromachining and the聽precise cutting of smartphone cover glass聽and other materials.
• Research: taking ultrafast images of split-second molecular processes, modeling extreme conditions in space, and developing new materials and fusion concepts.

CPA is also foundational for聽OMEGA EP and the next generation of ultrahigh-intensity lasers around the world.

In the hands of URochester糖心传媒檚 scientists and students, light itself becomes a tool for understanding the universe糖心传媒攁nd for imagining what comes next.