The CETAL PW laser facility is aimed to explore the scientific frontiers of laser-matter interaction at ultra-intense regime and to push forward the future technologies of aerospace,
nuclear engineering, or medical therapies.
The research activity of the CETAL-PW laboratory is focused on the interaction of ultra-short high-intensity lasers with matter and its aplications: plasma physics and diagnostics,
production of sources of energetic particles and radiation and their applications in different scientific fields (medicine, chemistry, space science).
Particle acceleration
Laser-driven plasmas are capable to generate and sustain electric fields higher than 100 GV/m. Due to the huge progress in the field of high-power lasers,
laser-plasma accelerators are now capable of delivering beams of electrons with energies from tens and few hundred MeV up to the GeV range,
over acceleration lengths of mm to cm, as well as ion beams of few tens of MeV/nucleon over distances of tens of microns. More info...
Plasma diagnostics
The investigation of laser-based acceleration process implies a complete diagnostics of plasma and accelerating structures generated by high-power laser pulses. Detailed knowledge about spatial and temporal distribution of plasma parameters helps to predict spatial and temporal characteristics of the accelerated beams. More info...
X-ray sources
Plasma x-ray lasers (XRL) generate coherent x-ray emission in the range below 40 nm and down to 4 nm. Their operation principle is related to the generation of population inversion in laser produced plasmas. The introduction of the 1L2S pumping scheme, which uses one long pump pulse and two short probe pulses allows the XRL emission down to 1-4 nm with a significantly low amount of laser pump energy. More info...
Pulse compression
High efforts were made in the development of high-energy and short-pulse lasers allowing to reach peak powers up to 10 PW. The scientists’ efforts are concentrated on decreasing the pulse duration instead of increasing the pulse energy- which is a more costly effort. Decreasing the pulse duration to attosecond-zeptosecond level, peak powers of exawatt can be reached with a simple Joule of energy. More info...
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