The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is a founding member of the Laser Science Network

The Extreme Light Lab of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is one of the founding members of a new research network aimed at bringing together the country's most powerful laser facilities.

The network, LaserNetUS, will provide US scientists with increased access to high-intensity and high-speed laser installations across the country. It features the most powerful lasers in the United States, including lasers that are nearing or exceeding a petawatt – a billion billion watts.

The US Department of Energy, through its Office of Science's Fusion Energy Sciences program, has allocated $ 6.8 million over two years to the network of laser facilities in nine facilities. In addition to Nebraska, the participating institutions are the University of Texas at Austin, Ohio State University, Colorado State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Rochester, the National Laboratory SLAC, the Laboratory National Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Nebraska hosted the first LaserNetUS meeting on August 20th and 21st in Lincoln. About 135 members of the US energy-dense scientific community attended.

Nebraska's leadership in the new network will allow him to tap into one of his strengths: research in high-intensity laser physics.

"As Nebraska's flagship research center, the Extreme Light Laboratory has already attracted several students and professors with experience in high-density physics research," said Donald Umstadter, professor of physics and physics. astronomy and laboratory director at Leland and Dorothy Olson. "We anticipate that the introduction of LaserNetUS will reinforce this trend."

High intensity lasers have many applications in basic research, manufacturing and medicine. They can be used to recreate some of the most extreme conditions in the universe, such as those encountered in supernova explosions and black holes. They can generate high-energy particles for physics research or intense X-ray pulses to probe the material as it evolves in very fast time. They are also promising for the detection of hidden explosive threats, the evaluation of aging aircraft components, precise cutting of materials and targeted radiation therapy for cancerous tumors.

Petawatt lasers generate light with almost 100 times the power of any plant in the world, but only in the shortest possible time. Using technology developed by two of this year's Nobel laureates in physics, called pulsed amplification, these lasers trigger ultra-fast flashes of light lasting less than a tenth of a trillion seconds.

The United States was the dominant innovator and user of high intensity laser technology in the 90s, but today, Europe and Asia have taken the ahead, according to a recent report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. Currently, 80 to 90% of the world's high-speed, high-intensity laser systems are installed abroad. All higher power research lasers currently under construction or already built are also abroad. The authors of the report recommended establishing a national network of laser installations to mimic successful efforts in Europe. LaserNetUS was created for this purpose.

Umstadter said the lab, with its research on the use of lasers to detect weapons of mass destruction, is playing a key role in the National Institute for Strategic Research, the research center affiliated with a university of the United States. US Department of Defense.

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LaserNetUS will organize a national call for proposals for access to network facilities. Proposals will be reviewed by an independent committee. This call will allow any American researcher to request access to one of the high-intensity lasers of the host institutions.

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