Hercules (laser)

Hercules is the name of a laser ( titanium-sapphire - femtosecond laser ) from the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS) at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor .

With an optical pulse power of 300 terawatts (TW), the Hercules is one of the most powerful lasers in the world. This is achieved by using the chirped pulse amplification technique. The width of the focused laser beam is approx. 1.3 µm. According to the developers, there is no other place in the entire universe with a comparable light intensity . The high performance of the laser is only achieved by delivering the pumped energy within femtoseconds. The laser pulse lasts approx. 30 femto seconds . The pulse energy is less than 10 joules .

The pure structure as titanium: compared to previous high-power lasers, which require up to an hour to recharge, sapphire lasers have the advantage that Hercules can emit a laser pulse every 10 seconds.

With these services, the laser can be used in physics (e.g. investigation of extreme states of matter up to corner points of inertial fusion ), but also in medicine.

See also

• National Ignition Facility and Laser Mégajoule (even more powerful lasers will go into operation there from 2009)
• POLARIS - Petawatt laser under construction (same repetition frequency 0.1 Hz, pulse duration 150 fs) at the Institute for Optics and Quantum Electronics Jena of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Web links / individual references

• Article about Hercules at golem.de
• University of Michigan report
• University of Michigan website
• CUOS website

1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Description of the petawatt laser project  
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated December 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Institute for Optics and Quantum Electronics