The Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) is a laser built by the Thales Group and owned and operated by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. [1] [2] On 20 July 2012, BELLA fired a 40 femtosecond laser pulse, establishing a world record for most powerful laser. [2] [3]
BELLA was designed and built by Thales as part of the Laser and Optical Accelerator Systems Integrated Studies (LOASIS) program at LBNL. The LOASIS group studies the application of high-powered lasers to build compact particle accelerators. The BELLA laser was developed for the purposes of studying this principle. [2] [3] The idea is that a laser which delivers a large amount of power in a very short pulse can cause ionization in a gas followed by plasma oscillation. [3] As a result the gas will emit electron bundles which can be used for medical imaging or materials research. [2] [3]
On 20 July 2012, BELLA fired a laser pulse with a duration of 40 femtoseconds and a repetition frequency of 1 hertz. The pulses had a compressed output energy of 42.2 joule, making the power output of the laser 1 petawatt:
This result established BELLA as the highest peak power laser in the world (at a 1 Hz repetition rate). [1] [2] [3]
In December, 2014, a team of researchers accelerated electrons using BELLA up to an energy of 4.25 GeV—the absolute highest energies recorded to date using a compact accelerator. [4]
The Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) is a laser built by the Thales Group and owned and operated by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. [1] [2] On 20 July 2012, BELLA fired a 40 femtosecond laser pulse, establishing a world record for most powerful laser. [2] [3]
BELLA was designed and built by Thales as part of the Laser and Optical Accelerator Systems Integrated Studies (LOASIS) program at LBNL. The LOASIS group studies the application of high-powered lasers to build compact particle accelerators. The BELLA laser was developed for the purposes of studying this principle. [2] [3] The idea is that a laser which delivers a large amount of power in a very short pulse can cause ionization in a gas followed by plasma oscillation. [3] As a result the gas will emit electron bundles which can be used for medical imaging or materials research. [2] [3]
On 20 July 2012, BELLA fired a laser pulse with a duration of 40 femtoseconds and a repetition frequency of 1 hertz. The pulses had a compressed output energy of 42.2 joule, making the power output of the laser 1 petawatt:
This result established BELLA as the highest peak power laser in the world (at a 1 Hz repetition rate). [1] [2] [3]
In December, 2014, a team of researchers accelerated electrons using BELLA up to an energy of 4.25 GeV—the absolute highest energies recorded to date using a compact accelerator. [4]