Vulcan laser
Encyclopedia
The Vulcan laser is an 8-beam 2.5 kJ per (~2 nanosecond) pulse infrared neodymium glass laser
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...

 at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council . It is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom...

's Central Laser Facility in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Vulcan is also capable of operating in frequency doubled mode where it can deliver about 1 kJ to a target at 532 nm in 2 ns pulses. One of Vulcan's beams is also available as an ultra-short pulse (~700 Joules in ~700 femtosecond) ultra-high intensity beam using chirped pulse amplification
Chirped pulse amplification
Chirped pulse amplification is a technique for amplifying an ultrashort laser pulse up to the petawatt level with the laser pulse being stretched out temporally and spectrally prior to amplification...

 called the "Vulcan petawatt". Main uses for Vulcan and Vulcan petawatt are the investigation of high intensity light-matter coupling experiments and inertial confinement fusion
Inertial confinement fusion
Inertial confinement fusion is a process where nuclear fusion reactions are initiated by heating and compressing a fuel target, typically in the form of a pellet that most often contains a mixture of deuterium and tritium....

experiments including the investigation of the "fast ignition" scheme of target implosion. In 2005 the Vulcan laser was the highest-intensity focused laser in the world, capable of producing a Petawatt laser beam with a focused intensity of 1021 watts per cm2.

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