deglr6328 writes "The OMEGA EP laser at the University of Rochester'sLaboratory for Laser Energetics was dedicated today at the Robert L. Sproull Center for Ultra High Intensity Laser Research. The new laser, which has been in design since ~2002 will, at 1 kilojoule per 1 picosecond pulse, be the highest energy petawatt (1 petawatt = 1 million billion watts) scale laser ever created by far. For a fleeting fraction of a second, it will deliver a beam of infrared light at 1054 nm that is more powerful than the total energy consumption of all human activity on the planet, to a tiny spot the size of the head of a pin. Previous petawatt scale lasers such as the one created at Lawrence Livermore labs in the late 90's (and dismantled in 1999) were capable of only several hundred joules per pulse. The new OMEGA EP laser will be able to manifest power densities sufficient to examine Unruh and Hawking radiation-like phenomena in the laboratory and will have the capability to directly produce nuclear reactions through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration, thus allowing it to transmute (albeit in very tiny amounts) long lived nuclear waste into stable isotopes. OMEGA EP's primary purpose will be to investigate fast-ignition inertial confinement laser fusion, which attempts to compress a microscopic pellet of hydrogen-ice fuel using the older 60 beam 30Kj 60 terawatt OMEGA laser to pressures exceeding 15 times those found at the core of the sun and temperatures in excess of 100 million K, and then at the exact moment of maximum implosion, injecting the EP petawatt beam to heat the core electron energies to multi-Kev temperatures — igniting a nuclear fusion burn wave through the remaining fuel, producing energy gain. Petawatt scale lasers such as EP may even be able to attain zetawatt powers using some very clever tricks, and would thus be in the realm of having the ability to "boil the vacuum" or generate matter by merely focusing light into empty space. On today's birthday of the first visible light laser 48 years ago, the future of laser physics is extraordinarily bright indeed." Link to Original Source
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