Within the cutting-edge research center in Romania, skilled engineer Antonia Toma initiates the world’s most potent laser. This groundbreaking technology is poised to bring forth transformative progress across various domains, including healthcare and space exploration.
At the heart, close to Bucharest, the Romanian capital, a laser facility is managed by the French company Thales. This company employs groundbreaking inventions that were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 2018, the prestigious award was bestowed upon two scientists, Gerard Mourou from France and Donna Strickland of Canada. They were recognized for their pioneering work on laser technology, which significantly enhanced the precision of corrective eye surgery and revolutionized various industrial applications.
In the center, with a wall of screens showcasing light beams, Toma examines a set of indicators prior to initiating the countdown.
From treating nuclear waste to clearing space debris, its potential is still being realised
Across the glass partition, multiple rows of red and black boxes contain two laser systems. A 29-year-old named Toma expressed honesty to AFP during a recent press visit to the facility, sharing, “Occasionally, the work can be somewhat stressful.”
However, she also mentioned the immense joy experienced in working there and the satisfaction derived from the successful outcomes achieved as international research teams visit the center.
‘Incredible odyssey’
Nobel laureate Mourou expressed his deep emotional connection to his remarkable journey, which led him from spending three decades in the United States to realizing this groundbreaking project in Europe.
Initiated in the 2000s as a part of the European Union’s Infrastructure ELI project, this endeavor has grown from a tiny, low-energy light source to an extraordinary feat of scientific achievement. At 79 years old, Mourou emphasized the “immense progress” made and the “astonishing powers” now harnessed.
Since the beginning, researchers have been dedicated to developing increasingly potent lasers. However, by the mid-1980s, they encountered a barrier; they could not enhance power without damaging the amplifying mechanism. This problem led to the invention of Chirped-Pulse Amplification by Mourou and his student, Strickland.
CPA allowed for power amplification without compromising safety. It does so by elongating a brief laser pulse in time, amplifying it, and then compressing it back together, resulting in the shortest and most intense laser pulses ever created. This technique has already been applied in corrective eye surgery and has paved the way for scientists to continue advancing laser power. Mourou stated, “We will utilize these ultra-intense pulses to develop more compact and affordable particle accelerators for cancer treatment.”
Age of the laser
Additional potential uses involve minimizing the radioactivity duration of nuclear waste, or addressing the space debris accumulation, as mentioned further.
For Mourou, the previous century was dominated by the electron, and he envisions the 21st century as the era of the laser. The magnitude of the work being conducted at the research facility is truly astonishing.
