FOCUS RESEARCH NEWS
FOCUS
RESEARCH NEWS
€4m, 5TW laser developed for Extreme Light Infrastructure project
l Sylos laser one of the most powerful in the world
l ELI-ALPS creates unique European research centre
A five terawatt, 1kHz OPCPA-based laser system worth €4 million has been produced by a consortium led by Ekspla and Light Conversion, two Lithuanian companies based in Vilnius. The system, named Sylos 1, was designed and built for the Extreme Light Infrastructure - Attosecond Light Pulse Source (ELI-ALPS) project facilities located in Szeged, Hungary. ‘This system is unique due to its outstanding combination of power and pulse duration,’ commented Kestutis Jasiunas, CEO of Ekspla. ‘Five terawatts establishes Sylos as one of the most powerful systems in the world, generating 10fs or shorter pulses at 1kHz repetition rate. Secondly, it employs innovative
Gediminas Veitas, the project leader at Light Conversion. The new system consists of an industrial-
The Sylos 1 is a 5TW, 1kHz OPCPA-based laser system worth €4 million, produced by Ekspla and Light conversion for the ELI-ALPS project
OPCPA technology born and perfected at Vilnius University, Lithuania. Featuring a comparatively simple and cost-effective layout, OPCPA is a key approach in equipping the high intensity laser facility to reach attoseconds in deep UV regions.’ ‘To the best of our knowledge, Sylos 1
delivers the highest average power currently achieved among CEP-stabilised, few-cycle, terawatt-class laser systems,’ added Dr
KIT team develops glass printing process
Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a method for 3D printing glass. The process, which has been described in Nature and was demonstrated at the Hannover Messe trade fair in April, could open up new applications in production and research, including optics, data transmission, and biotechnology, the researchers have said. The KIT team, led by
mechanical engineer Dr Bastian E Rapp, mixed nanoparticles of high-purity quartz glass and a small quantity of liquid polymer and then allowed the mixture to be cured by light at specific points – by means of stereolithography. The material, which has remained liquid, is washed out in a solvent bath,
leaving only the desired cured structure. The polymer, still mixed in this glass structure, is subsequently removed by heating.
‘The shape initially resembles
that of a pound cake; it is still unstable, and therefore the glass is sintered in a final step – i.e. heated so that the glass particles are fused,’ explained Rapp. He conducts research at the KIT Institute of Microstructure Technology and heads a working group of chemists, electrical engineers, and biologists. The KIT team are not the
first to additively manufacture glass; in 2015, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed a 3D printer capable of producing optically transparent glass
components. The system uses temperatures of more than 1,0000C to produce glass with light transmission, reflection and refraction that can be controlled. However, according to the
KIT researchers, melting and application by means of a nozzle results in surfaces that are rough, and material that is porous and contains voids. ‘We present a new method, an innovation in materials processing, in which the material of the piece manufactured is high-purity quartz glass with the respective chemical and physical properties,’ explained Rapp. The glass structures made
by the KIT scientists show resolutions in the range of a few micrometres. 3D-formed glass can be used,
Complicated high-precision structures made of glass can be manufactured in a 3D-printing process developed at the KIT
for instance, in data technology. ‘The next plus one generation of computers will use light, which requires complicated processor structures; 3D-technology could be used, for instance, to make small, complex structures out of a large number of very small optical components of different orientations,’ explained Rapp.
grade Pharos femtosecond laser from Light Conversion, which pumps the company’s femtosecond OPAs to deliver passively CEP stable seed pulses. Also featured is a diode- pumped Nd:YAG picosecond pump laser from Ekspla and four picosecond OPCPA stages, preceded by a seed pulse stretcher and followed by a compressor. The main object of the ELI-ALPS project
is to create a unique European research centre that provides the international research community with high-power laser pulses and further sources based on these. The Szeged facility will offer the highest intensity, highest repetition rate and shortest laser pulses in the world. The design and construction of the Sylos
1 system started on November 2014 and lasted more than two years; it is valued at around €4 million.
10 Electro Optics May 2017
@electrooptics |
www.electrooptics.com
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