The Intensity-Pulse Duration Conjecture:
ELI’s Lynchpin
ELI-NP: The Way Ahead
Bucharest
March 10, 2011
Gérard Mourou,
Institut de Lumière Extrême
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The laser is 50!!
T. Maiman
Hughes Laboratory May 16 1960
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Laser Physics
Relativistic
Optics
GeV-TeV
Cold Atoms
feV-neV
1eV
2010
2010
1960
Atomic, molecular and
optical (AMO)Physics
Optics
•Atom
•Quantum Optics
•Metrology
Physics
•Condensed-Matter
•Quantum Information Science (
Quantum Computer)
•Chemistry
9/3/10
Relativistic/ultraRelativistic Optics
Plasma physics
•Accelerator physics
Physics
•Nuclear
•Cosmology
•NL QED
Relativity
•General
•Extradimension physics
Présentation Site ILE G. Mourou
3
Mission:
“”””””Study matter from atom to vacuum
Until today Fundamental Research
has been carried out and dominated
by the Particle-based Paradigm:
namely accelerator
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20th Century, the Electron Century
Basic Research Dominated by
Massive and Charged Particles
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21st Century; the Photon Century
Could basic research be driven
by the massless and chargeless particles;
Photons?
The First exemple is the Extreme Light
Infrastructure ELI.
?
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21st Century; the Photon Century
Could basic research be driven
by the massless and chargeless Photons??
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Large Scale Lasers: Could they
become the Next Large Scale
Fondamental Research
Infrastructures?
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Tool Boxe
• Includes, large fields to induce large scale
perturbations in Atoms, Nuclei and Vacuum.
• To produce ultrashort pulses of radiation and
particle to probe ultrafast events in atomic,
nuclear physics, .., in femto, atto, zepto, yocto
second regime.
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Power/intensity and Pulse
Duration are naturally linked together
The Peak Power -Pulse Duration Conjecture:
1) To get high peak power you must decrease the
pulse duration.
2) To get short pulses you must increase the
intensity
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The Pulse Duration-Intensity Conjecture
G.A. Mourou and T. Tajima, “More intense Shorter Pulse”,
SCIENCE VOL 331 , 7 , p 41JANUARY 2011
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2
Europe has decided
to build the highest
intensity laser ELI
PW, 1mm
~highest power laser today
Linewidth =50TW
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PW, 20cm
Few Facts about ELI
Peak Power 200PW
Energy per Pulse 2kJ
Pulse duration 10fs
Intensity>1025W/cm2
OPCPA-CPA Ti:sapphire
10 beams
1shot /mn
First Light 2017
Ultrashort pulses can provide
Photons and Particles with Short and Synchronized
Time Structure in the femtosecond, attosecond,
zeptosecond regimes
Particules: Electrons
Protons, muons,…
Visible
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High energy radiation: X,
gamma ray
G Mourou CEA Bruyere
ELI Nuclear Physics
• Fundamental Physics of Perturbative and Nonperturbative High-Field QED: Pair creation, high energy g
rays, birefringence of the quantum vacuum.
• High-resolution nuclear spectroscopy:
– Neutron halo-isomers, chaotic properties of
nuclear states, nuclear potential landscpe, parityviolating meson-nucleon coupling, pygmy dipole
resonance .
• Astrophysics of the r-, s-, p-processes in
nucleosynthesis: masses of waiting point nuclei,
pygmy resonance.
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