María Dolores Rodríguez Frías, Director of Pulsed Laser Center (CLPU) of Salamanca (Spain)

When

Contact info

Contact

Enric Vinyals

Website

https://indico.cells.es/event/1351/

The Pulsed Laser Center (CLPU) is an ICTS, part of the infrastructure map strategies of Spain, parallel to the European map of ESFRI infrastructures. The uniqueness of the CLPU is given by the VEGA high-intensity laser system, made up of three different laser lines, all based on Titanium:Sapphire broadband pulse technology with CPA amplification (i.e. Chirped Pulsed Amplification), generating ultra-high pulses very fast and with peak powers of 20 TW, 200 TW and 1PW respectively, and maximum repetition rates of 10 Hz and 1 Hz, which makes the CLPU the laser center with the most powerful laser in Spain and among the three most powerful in the world at a high repetition rate. Therefore, it is possible to irradiate samples at intensity levels above 1020 W/cm2, opening the doors to the study of materials in extreme conditions (i.e. physics of plasmas, quantum vacuum, etc), generating secondary beams of photons (e.g., THz, X-rays, gamma rays, etc.) and particles (e.g., electrons, ions, neutrons etc.) of high energy, having obtained electrons above the GeV of energy. The fields of application are therefore highly multidisciplinary in particle physics, medical applications, generation of extreme environments similar to outer space (e.g., defense, space), emulation of astrophysical phenomena on a laboratory scale (e.g., astrophysics, nuclear energy), applications to the study of cultural heritage, and study of materials on ultrafast time scales, and fundamental physics topics (e.g. nonperturbative QED, nuclear physics etc). Currently the CLPU participates in the European projects Laserlab Europe V, ELI-Impulse, Radnext and together with ALBA in Remade-at-ARI and EuPRAXIA.