The ZEUS laser facility at the University of Michigan now holds the title of the most powerful laser in the U.S. It reached 2 petawatts (2 quadrillion watts) in its first official experiment.
This power lasts only 25 quintillionths of a second, a tiny fraction of time. The laser’s brief pulse delivers energy 100 times greater than the world’s electricity output. This opens new areas for high field science. ZEUS, supported by the National Science Foundation, welcomes researchers worldwide. Scientists submit proposals, and an independent process selects the best experiments.
ZEUS will impact fields like medicine, national security, materials science, astrophysics, plasma science, and quantum physics. Plasma is a gas-like state where electrons break free from atoms, creating charged particles. Quantum physics studies tiny particles and their strange behaviors. The facility’s design allows splitting the laser into multiple beams, making it versatile. Franklin Dollar, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, leads the first 2-petawatt experiment. His group aims to create high-energy electron beams, matching those from huge particle accelerators. Particle accelerators are machines that speed up tiny particles for research.
Advanced Experiments and Technology
The experiment uses two laser beams. One beam forms a guiding channel, and the other accelerates electrons through it. The experiment uses a longer gas cell filled with helium. The laser pulse hits the gas, turning it into plasma. This process, called wakefield acceleration, pushes electrons like surfers behind a boat. In plasma, light moves slower, letting electrons gain more speed over a longer distance. This could produce electron energies 5-10 times higher than before at ZEUS.
The laser starts as an infrared pulse, stretched by diffraction gratings, which are optical devices that split light. Pump lasers add energy, and vacuum chambers compress the pulse into a thin, intense disk. A titanium-sapphire crystal, critical for amplification, boosts the pulse to full power. Challenges include cleaning carbon deposits from gratings to prevent damage. ZEUS, the size of a gymnasium, has run 11 experiments since October 2023, involving 58 researchers from 22 institutions. Upgrades aim for 3 petawatts soon, promising more discoveries.
