The Force is With U. of Texas

  ABC New On Campus Reporter Loren Grush blogs: The University of Texas is home to some of the brightest minds in the universe, and now, to the brightest lights as well. Buried beneath Robert Lee Moore Hall on the university’s campus lies the Texas Petawatt Laser, the most powerful laser in the world, capable of producing energy similar to that of stars.   “When we shoot the laser, we can’t even be in the same room with it,” said Todd Ditmire, director for the Texas Center for High Intensity Laser Science.  “You don’t even worry about sunscreen, you just get out of there.” The Laser is part of a research project conducted by the High Intensity Laser Science Group.  This collection of scientists studies the effects and reactions of blasting intense laser light on certain types of matter.  And the word “intense” may even be an understatement. “We get to make the claim that this is the highest powered laser in the world,” said Ditmire, who also serves as director for Project Petawatt.  “The power output of this laser is one thousand trillion watts, which is about two thousand times the power output of all the power plants in the United States combined.” So how does this powerful machine work?  It’s all in the numbers.  The laser shoots off an amplified pulse of light with an energy of about 200 Jules (the same amount of energy a baseball has when pitched by a major league baseball pitcher).  But the duration of the pulse is only one tenth of a trillionth of a second long. “So when you take that energy and whack it onto a target very quickly, well, it’s the energy divided by that tiny number, so the power gets…very large,” Ditmire said. “We’re studying how the universe works by making a small portion of it right here in the lab.” And when this laser is turned on, the lab gets a little crazy. “These are experiments that create extreme conditions in the lab,” said Aaron Bernstein, deputy director for the group. “It’s useful for exploring the kind of conditions that exist in outer space and other things that are inaccessible typically to researchers.”  “We create very high temperature conditions,” said Ditmire.  “Conditions that you might find in a super nova.” The High Intensity Laser Science Group may be having fun with these intense temperatures, but they have many plans to apply their findings to real world situations.  One such goal includes a major contribution to the medical industry. “If you make one of these very hot plasmas, you can play some tricks in such a way that this plasma will accelerate protons,” said Ditmire.  “We can potentially use these accelerated proton beams for cancer therapy.  This way is better because protons deposit energy in a much more localized way.  When you have cancer you just want to focus on the cancerous tissue and not the healthy tissue surrounding it.  And protons are better for doing that.” The trick is mass-producing the technology.  Once Ditmire perfects these techniques with his laser, his team can begin to develop or more compact laser that produces the same results. “I someday hope to put a Pettawatt laser in every hospital,” said Ditmire. Despite the laser’s staggering capabilities, Ditmire finds it noteworthy for another reason. “What makes this so special is that this laser is at an educational institution,” said Ditmire.  “There are only a handful of lasers in the world that are even in the same ball park of this laser, and students can use it and do their research on it.  It’s very unique.”