Metallurgy

The PETAL laser (short for PETawatt Aquitaine Laser) is one of the most powerful scientific instruments in the world. It is located in Le Barp, near Bordeaux, France, at the CEA CESTA site.

It is part of a larger complex called the Laser Mégajoule (LMJ), and together they form a unique facility dedicated to extreme physics research.

1. What is it?

PETAL is a high-energy, ultra-short pulse laser. While the main LMJ facility uses 176 laser beams to create high energy over "long" durations (nanoseconds), PETAL provides a single, incredibly intense "short" burst.

• Power: It has reached a peak power of 1.2 Petawatts (one million billion watts). For comparison, this is hundreds of times the power of the entire global electricity grid, but concentrated into a tiny fraction of a second.

• Pulse Duration: The flash lasts only about 0.5 to 10 picoseconds (a picosecond is one-trillionth of a second).

2. Scientific Purpose

The facility allows scientists to recreate the extreme conditions found in the center of stars or giant planets. Key areas of research include:

• Inertial Confinement Fusion: Exploring how to create clean, limitless energy by fusing atoms.

• Laboratory Astrophysics: Simulating supernovae, stellar jets, and magnetic fields to understand how the universe formed.

• Medical Research: Using the laser to accelerate particles for new types of cancer radiotherapy (proton therapy).

• Extreme Matter: Studying "hot dense matter" to see how materials behave under billions of times atmospheric pressure.