Petawatt Lasers: Harnessing the Power of the Sun

Since the 1950s, nuclear fusion has been the white whale of sustainability research—an elusive but powerful process that, if successfully replicated, could provide the world with a clean and infinitely renewable supply of energy. As the same phenomenon that fuels the sun and other stars, this process, which involves the merging of two light atomic nuclei to form a heavier nucleus, releases vast amounts of energy with no long-lived radioactive waste and has the potential to eliminate our global dependence on fossil fuels.

While this may sound like the stuff of science fiction, the U.S. Department of Energy reports that the availability of technologies that harness the power of nuclear fusion may be closer than we think. In December of 2022, an experiment run by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California resulted in a net-gain of energy—the first time this has been achieved in the history of the field. The experiment briefly achieved a long sought-after result known as fusion ignition, when 2.05 megajoules of energy delivered to the target generated 3.15 megajoules of energy output.

A crucial component of this groundbreaking experiment? The focused power of petawatt lasers, which deliver a vast supply of energy to a target in a matter of picoseconds. These powerful laser systems are strong enough to break up atoms and accelerate electrons toward nuclei in a tiny, nearly perfectly round hydrogen-loaded target shell. CBS “60 Minutes” reported that the beams in the experiment struck the target with a force one thousand times greater than the entire national power grid!

While their usefulness in achieving nuclear fusion is certainly among the more fascinating applications of these lasers, they also have uses in various other scientific fields. The petawatt laser was originally developed for fusion ignition research, but it also opened the door to entirely new physical regimes of study, enabling scientists to use lasers along with particle accelerators to learn more about fundamental properties of matter and high-energy-density physics, including through the study of black holes.  

According to the journal “High Power Laser Science and Engineering,” petawatt class lasers are also utilized for particle acceleration, inertial confinement fusion, and for secondary source generation (x-rays, electrons, protons, neutrons and ions). Similarly, petawatt class lasers are also used in the research of gamma rays for industrial applications. Research at the multipetawatt ELI Beamlines facility in the Czech Republic could lead to advances in the use of petawatt lasers to generate gamma rays for materials science, nuclear waste imaging, high-resolution deep-penetration radiography, fundamental physics studies and more.

Applied Photon Technology (APT) develops cutting-edge equipment that enables scientific advancement and new commercial applications. Among these advanced technologies are our flashlamps, which are used in petawatt laser systems such as the ones used for research at Livermore National Lab.

While there’s still a ways to go before nuclear fusion can meaningfully lower our global consumption of fossil fuels, APT is proud to develop flashlamps for laser systems that advance this important area of sustainability research. Learn more about APT’s products, including flashlamps for petawatt laser systems, at our website.