The team’s ambitions don’t stop there. This year, Li Ruxin and his colleagues plan to start building a 100 PW laser called the “Super laser pointer Station” (SEL). By 2023, it will “throw” the pulse into a cavity 20 meters deep, creating extreme temperatures and pressures that are usually not reachable on Earth. Astrophysicists and materials scientists will benefit from this.
Atomic physicists at Stanford University in the United States said that the Chinese team “has an absolute leading position” in the development of 100PW lasers. However, competition is fierce. In the next few years, as part of Europe’s “Aurora Infrastructure”, a 10PW device should be launched in Romania and the Czech Republic, although the project has recently postponed the construction of 100PW-class equipment.
Russian physicists have developed a 180PW laser design called the “Iwa Center for Polar Laser Pointers”, while Japanese researchers have also proposed building 30PW equipment. At the same time, a study released by a US National Science, Engineering, and Medical School team showed that American scientists were absent from the competition. The study called on the U.S. Department of Energy to plan for at least one high-power laser facility, and that gave hope to researchers at the University of Rochester.