Harnessing Light: Exploring the World’s Biggest Laser

A laser is a marvel of modern technology, emitting a concentrated beam of light where all waves align in perfect harmony. This synchronisation endows lasers with extraordinary precision and power, enabling applications ranging from delicate medical procedures to cutting-edge scientific research. But they’re not just about complex scientific experiments. You can’t scan your shopping in the supermarket without a laser. You wouldn’t have been able to watch a DVD without a laser. Almost every home and office has a laser printer. They’re everywhere.

In medicine, lasers enable surgeons to operate with extreme accuracy, minimising damage to surrounding tissues. In telecommunications, lasers transmit information through optical fibres, forming the backbone of the internet and global communication networks. Industries use lasers for cutting, welding, and material processing, while scientists all over the world use contenders for the title of world’s largest laser in cutting-edge research, ranging from atomic studies to space exploration.

So where is the biggest laser in the world, and how powerful is it? Let’s shed some intense light on the runners and riders.

In 1917, Albert Einstein proposed the concept of stimulated emission of radiation, which formed the theoretical foundation for lasers. This theory suggested that photons could stimulate atoms to release more photons of the same wavelength and direction, creating a cascading effect which allows for the amplification of light.

However, it wasn’t until 1960 – five years after Einstein’s death – that the first operational laser was fired by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories in California. Using a synthetic ruby crystal, Maiman’s groundbreaking invention emitted a coherent red light, marking a pivotal moment that would revolutionise technology and science in the decades that followed.

While the technology is staggeringly complex, the name is quite simple. Laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Interestingly, the word ‘laser’ was first used by American physicist Gordon Gould in 1959, a year before the first laser was fired.

Here are the contenders for the world’s biggest laser as well as the most powerful laser in the world.

The world’s highest-energy laser, and one of the contenders for the largest laser in the world, is located at the National Ignition Facility, part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The facility is roughly the size of three football pitches and the technology is reported to be the world’s most precise laser system. It fires 192 powerful laser beams onto a target around two millimetres across in a few billionths of a second. It delivers over two million joules of ultraviolet energy and 500 trillion watts – 0.5 petawatts – of peak power.

The intense laser beam generates temperatures of around 180 million degrees Fahrenheit and pressures of over 100 billion Earth atmospheres. These extreme conditions ‘cause hydrogen atoms in the target to fuse and release energy in a controlled thermonuclear reaction.’

According to the NIF, the laser’s ‘unique energy and power enable cutting-edge research to explore new frontiers of science, and lay the groundwork for a clean, sustainable source of energy.’

The ELI is a pioneering European initiative aimed at creating the world’s most advanced, most powerful, and biggest laser research facilities. The project’s main objective is to investigate the interactions between light and matter at unprecedented intensity and timescales, opening new frontiers in physics, materials science, medicine, and energy. There are three facilities, each specialising in different aspects of laser science:

ELI Beamlines in the Czech Republic focuses on developing ultra-intense laser pulses and secondary sources of radiation and particles.

ELI Attosecond Light Pulse Source in Hungary specializes in generating extremely short light pulses in the attosecond range (an attosecond is 10−18 seconds).

ELI Nuclear Physics in Romania is dedicated to nuclear physics applications.

The technologies developed at ELI involve some of the biggest lasers in the world, on the petawatt-scale, capable of producing extremely high peak powers over incredibly short durations. These lasers can create conditions similar to those found in stars or during nuclear reactions, allowing for experimental investigations that were previously theoretical or unattainable.

Zeus, or the Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System, is believed to be the most powerful laser in the United States, and a contender for the largest laser in the world. Zeus is located at the University of Michigan’s Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science and is an immensely powerful three-petawatt laser.

Its primary study goals include attempting to discover how matter behaves under extreme electromagnetic fields like neutron stars and black holes, as well as developing new methods of particle acceleration, testing the predictions of quantum electrodynamics, and studying plasma physics and high-energy density science.

The Centre for Relativistic Laser Science (CoReLS) is a world-class research facility located in Gwangju, South Korea. Established in 2012, CoReLS focuses on advancing the field of high-intensity laser science and exploring the interactions between ultra-intense lasers and matter.

In 2016, the facility successfully generated a laser beam with a peak power of four petawatts (PW). Five years later CoReLS announced they had upgraded their laser system to produce ten-petawatt laser pulses, thought to be the world’s largest laser. These ultra-high-power laser pulses last for approximately 20 femtoseconds (20 quadrillionths of a second), enabling scientists to probe phenomena that occur on incredibly short timescales and at extreme intensities.

While it’s not due for completion until 2029, the Vulcan 20-20 laser, currently being built in the Central Laser Facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, will likely be the biggest laser in the world.

According to reports, it will produce an astonishing 20-petawatt beam which will be a million, billion, billion times as bright as the most intense sunlight. It will be focused at a target a few thousandths of a millimetre across for less than one trillionth of a second.

The scientific goals of Vulcan 20-20 are on the grandest scale, including to further our understanding of the cosmos, to discover if laser fusion has the ability to generate a new source of clean energy, and even to create new matter.

The world’s largest laser and the pretenders to its throne are monumental scientific endeavours that not only showcase the zenith of laser technology but also hold the promise of groundbreaking advancements in energy, medicine, and our understanding of the universe.