Works on the most powerful laser facility in the world, a collaboration project between 12 European countries, will start next year in Magurele, Romania. The laser should be ready in 2015 and the costs would rise to EUR 280 million, coming from European funds, according to Romanain daily Gandul. Around 90 percent of the researchers who will work there will be foreigners, according to estimates.

This is part of a project called ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure). In addition to the laboratories in Romania, where the particularly nuclear physics experiments will take place, the ELI project also includes research centers in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The first three sites will be situated in Prague (Czech Republic), Szeged (Hungary) and Magurele (Romania) and should be operational in 2015. The fourth site will be selected in 2012 and is scheduled for commissioning in 2017.

The device will produce a beam of power comparable to that of all light bulbs in a hundred billion 10-storey blocks. “It is more than a laser. It is a comprehensive research infrastructure that will join the list of the world's major laboratories”, says professor Nicolae Zamfir, general director of the “Horia Hrubei” National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering.

The whole complex devoted to laser research will cover two hectares and the temperature, humidity and cleanliness inside will be under strict control, with the use of an air conditioner that will use green energy.

Several experiments will take place there: “unstable nuclei that do not exist naturally on Earth will be produced and studied, to respond to key questions in astrophysics: how heavy elements formed in the universe”, says Daniel Ursescu, a researcher at the National Institute of Lasers, Plasma and Radiation.

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