Zeus, a mighty laser with potential fires a pulse into the future

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Physicists have run their first experiment with ZEUS, the highest peak power laser in the USA, and among the most powerful in the world. Potential breakthroughs in physics, medicine, and materials science beckon.

The Zetawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System, (ZEUS) delivered 2 petawatts (2 quadrillion watts) of power, more than 100 times the global electricity output, for just 25 quintillionths of a second. It was double the peak power of any other laser in the USA.

This is a milestone, potentially ushering in a better understanding of the “cosmos by recreating some of the universe’s most energetic light and particle acceleration phenomena in a university laboratory setting,” says Dr Slava Lukin, director of the U.S. National Science Foundation plasma physics program.

Other potential applications include medicine, national security, quantum physics and materials and plasma science.

“We aim to reach higher electron energies using two separate laser beams—one to form a guiding channel and the other to accelerate electrons through it,” says University of Michigan engineer Dr Anatoly Maksimchuk, who leads the development of the experimental areas.

Acceleration is achieved using the laser pulse on a helium-filled target cell. As the pulse passes through the gas, plasma is produced: a ‘soup’ of charged particles, electrons and positively charged ions. Electrons in the newly-made plasma get dragged along behind the light pulse as it passes through the cell, accelerating, like wake-boarders behind a speedboat.

Each pulse is about 30cm across and a metre long.

A 3-petawatt experiment will follow later this year. Accelerated electrons will slam into laser pulses coming in the opposite direction, and just like a head-on collision on the highway the 3-petawatt laser pulse will seem a million times more powerful.

The laser relies on an 18cm sapphire crystal infused with titanium atoms, for that level of acceleration.

“The crystal that we’re going to get in the summer will get us to 3 petawatts, and it took four and a half years to manufacture,” said Dr Franko Bayer, ZEUS project manager. “The size of the titanium sapphire crystal we have, there are only a few in the world.”

“The fundamental research done at the NSF ZEUS facility has many possible applications, including better imaging methods for soft tissues and advancing the technology used to treat cancer and other diseases,” says Dr Vyacheslav Lukin, program director in the US NSF Division of Physics, which oversees the ZEUS project.

“Scientists using the unique capabilities of ZEUS will expand the frontiers of human knowledge in new ways.”