The European Commission has recently given the final approval required to build the three most powerful lasers in the world. The project, called Extreme Light Infrastructure, is a first step in building a more powerful laser that will try to attract particles in the vacuum of space-time. The three lasers will be built in Magurele, Romania, in the Czech Republic and in Hungary and are scheduled to be commissioned in 2015.

Each laser will provide power pulses to reach 10 petawatts, which is several hundred times more powerful than the one used at this time. These pulses will take 1.5 x 10 to 14 seconds, less than a tenth of the time light takes to cross the diameter of a human hair. Each of the three lasers will cost USD 400 million, and the design of each of them will differ depending on the purpose.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(photo source: ELI)