High-Power Lasers in High-Energy-Density Physics

Abstract

The rapid progress of laser technology has opened up the possibility of generating ultrashort laser pulses of the nano–pico–femto1–atto–second range and of bringing (see Tables 3.2, 3.3; Fig. 3.2) the existing and projected laser complexes into the petawatt–zettawatt power range (Figs 4.1, 4.2), making it possible to span a wide range of power densities up to the highest values achievable today, q ≈ 1022– 1023 W/cm2 [70, 69, 6, 14], which will undoubtedly rise with time.